A LEGEND Cheta Rivera, a Broadway star, has died.
The two-time Tony winner died peacefully in New York after being sick for a short time. Age 91.
Deadline says that Chita’s daughter Lisa Mordente confirmed that she had died.
That being said, Chita may have been best known for playing Anita in the first Broadway show of West Side Story in 1957.
In the first Broadway production of Chicago in 1975, she played the lead role of Velma Kelly.
Catherine Zeta-Jones won an Oscar for her role as Velma in the 2002 movie version, which had a small cameo by Chita.
During her long and successful career, she won two Tony Awards for her roles in The Rink (1984) and Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993).
In 2018, Chita also got a Tony Award for her lifetime of work.
For work outside of theater, President Barack Obama gave Chits The Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. This is the highest honor a U.S. citizen can receive.
She was also given a prestigious Kennedy Center Honor.
Even in 2015, Chita was still dancing on Broadway in “The Visit.”
She told The Associated Press at the time, “I wouldn’t know what to do if I wasn’t moving, telling you a story, or singing a song.” “That’s how I live my life, and I feel so lucky to be able to do what I love even now.”
It was in Washington, D.C., on January 23, 1933, that Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero was born.
When she was 7, her father died. He was a musician in the US Navy Band.
Chita learned to dance and then went to New York to join the prestigious School of American Ballet.
When she was 17, she got her start on stage in the touring company of Call Me Madam.
“I can’t believe I’ve been given the chance to live my life over again,” she told The Associated Press in 2005. “Anybody can do it — if you really believe it, you have the good fortune, you do all the right things and you really work hard.”
