Chita Rivera, who electrified Broadway stages over six decades in shows including West Side Story and Chicago as one of the foremost entertainers of her generation, died Tuesday at 91, her publicist said.
Rivera – a singer, dancer, and actress – died in New York after a “brief illness,” her daughter Lisa Mordente said in a statement released by publicist Merle Frimark.
Trained in voice, piano, and ballet from a young age, Rivera was dancing on Broadway before she was 20 and kept at it all the way into her early ‘80s.
Rivera became one of the most nominated actors in the history of the Tony Awards, Broadway’s highest prizes, with 10 nods.
In 2002 she earned Kennedy Center honors – a top US arts distinction – and was feted at the White House in 2009 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Sensual and with a brassy stage presence, Rivera played some of Broadway’s most acclaimed roles and worked under legendary talents including Leonard Bernstein, Bob Fosse, Stephen Sondheim, and Jerome Robbins.
She and fellow actress Rita Moreno paved the way for other stars of Puerto Rican descent, such as actor-songwriter-playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame, to conquer Broadway.
“The trailblazer for PR on Broadway,” Miranda wrote of Rivera on Instagram Tuesday. “She IS magnificent, not ready for the past tense just yet.”
Rivera earned the 1957 breakout role of Anita in West Side Story, the 20th century American adaptation of the Shakespeare tale Romeo and Juliet, which made her a star and earned her first Tony nomination.