One of Broadway’s most renowned triple threats, Tony Award-winning Chita Rivera, has died at age 91. In over six decades she appeared in more than 20 Broadway musicals, winning multiple awards. Her death was announced by her daughter, Lisa Mordente, who said Rivera, who lived in Rockland County, had passed “after a brief illness.”
Her Broadway credits date back to 1950, but it was in 1957’s West Side Story that Rivera shot to stardom as Anita. She was a standout in a duet with Carol Lawrence as Maria in “A Boy Like That/I Have a Love,” and in the multi-character “Tonight;” but it was the rousing singing and dancing “America” that made critics sit up and pay attention. Rivera went on to perform or create more roles for shows such as Bye-Bye Birdy, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Nine. She starred as the original Velma Kelly in the 1975 production of Chicago, and for the 25-year anniversary of the show, played Roxie Hart in Toronto, Las Vegas and London. Her last Broadway outing was at age 82 starring in 2015’s The Visit, the Kander-Ebb-McNally musical based on Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s satirical play about greed and revenge.
When Rivera wasn’t headlining on Broadway, she worked in many other outlets, including international cabaret, films and on television. During the TV era of great variety shows she appeared on the shows of the likes of Ed Sullivan, Dinah Shore, Garry Moore, Sid Caesar and Carol Burnett. Her most recent screen credit was in the Netflix 2021 movie Tick Tick …Boom.
In 1986, however, she endured a tragedy when a taxi collided with her car in Manhattan. Her left leg was shattered in a dozen places, requiring two surgeries, with screws and plates used to reconnect her bones. Months of rehabilitation followed, and beyond all expectation—her injury would have ended the career of many dancers—a year after the accident she began dancing again, first with cabaret acts that sustained her as she continued to build strength and stamina. She was back on Broadway in 2005 with A Dancer’s Life.
Rivera was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero Anderson in Washington D.C., the third of five children of Pedro Julio and Katherine (Anderson) del Rivero. Her 
Puerto Rican-born father played the clarinet and saxophone with the U.S. Navy Band and the Harry James Orchestra, but died when Rivera was 7. Rivera was an unusually active child, causing her mother to enroll her in piano and singing lessons—and dance, at the Jones-Haywood School of Ballet. An audition for George Balanchine led to her winning a scholarship to his School of American Ballet in New York City. Living with family in the Bronx, she graduated from William Howard Taft High School in 1951, and dropped out of the School of American Ballet to pursue her dreams of Broadway. In 1957, Rivera married Anthony Mordente, a dancer in West Side Story, which produced one child, Lisa Mordente. They divorced in 1966.
After leaving Balanchine, Rivera quickly landed her first professional role in a touring production of Call Me Madam, led by Elaine Stritch. Ten months later, she replaced Onna White as a principal dancer in Guys and Dolls in New York. Over the next few years, she danced in Seventh Heaven, Shoestring Revue and Mr. Wonderful as her career advanced. It was during this era, after several name changes that she became Chita Rivera.
Among her many awards, Rivera won two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical, for The Rink and Kiss of the Spider Woman, and was nominated for eight others. In 2002 she became the first Hispanic-American woman to receive Kennedy Center Honors. She also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barak Obama in 2009, and in 2018 was given a special Tony for lifetime achievement.
Her long-awaited autobiography, Chita: A Memoir, written with journalist Patrick Pacheco, was published in the spring of 2023.
Beside her daughter Lisa, Rivera is survived by her siblings Julio, Armando and Lola del Rivero, and many nieces and nephews. Her funeral will be private. A memorial service, according to her death announcement, will be “in due course,” with information that those wishing to make donations in her memory do so to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
