Monday, April 23, 2012

beyond fred, ginger & gene

  For reasons sadly transparent, more than 50 years later, Rita Moreno continues to downgrade Natalie Wood, commenting in an AFI interview that WSS "had no major stars. Natalie Wood was not a major star! The movie was the star!" Sorry, Moreno, you're wrong. Natalie's delicate rooftop dance, created especially for her by Jerome Robbins, is more classic than all your ligament-spraining kicks in the racist "America!" number.

 The film: “West Side Story” (1961)

 The directors: Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

 The number: “Maria’s Rooftop Dance” (“Maria”)

 The composer: Leonard Bernstein

 The choreographer: Robbins

 The dancer: Natalie Wood

 The cinematographer: Daniel L. Fapp

 The editor: Thomas Stanford

 The production designer: Boris Leven

1 comment:

Sheila said...

Lovely moment! I believe Robbins created this bit especially for Natalie.