West Side Story Actor Tony Mordente, who starred in both the original Broadway production and the 1961 film, died Tuesday. He was 88 years old.
Mordente is best known for playing a member of the Jets named Action in the 1961 adaptation of the hit Broadway play. He previously played A-Rab, a different member of the Jets, in the original stage production.
His death comes just months after his ex-wife Chita Rivera, who played Anita in the original 1961 film, died earlier this year.
Born in 1935 in Brooklyn, Mordente began dancing at age 13 when he began attending dance classes.
“My mother thought I had too much energy when I was 13, and it was also a matter of getting me off the street,” he said in a 1963 interview.
He later enrolled at the American Ballet Theater School on a scholarship, where he was discovered by Michael Kidd, who cast him in the Broadway play. Li’l Abner. Thus she began her career in Hollywood.
After starring in the Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise-directed adaptation of West Side StoryMordente did some acting with appearances in The outer limits and Combat! before finding his calling as a director. He then directed dozens of television programs, including The A team, Against the current, seventh heaven, MIX, and more. He also worked as a choreographer in The Ed Sullivan Show and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.
Mordente and Rivera were married from 1957 to 1966. By all indications, their relationship proved to be very controversial on the set of West Side Story.
“A Jet marrying a Shark. It was quite a thing,” she once said in an interview, according to The Hollywood Review.
Program He also reported: “Chita, the original Anita, remembers very clearly being told that the Sharks and Jets wereNoallowed to fraternize. Well, not only did she fraternize with Jet (Tony Mordente), but they ended up having a daughter!
He later remarried in 1978 to Jean G. Fraser, with whom he shares a second daughter.
Mordente is survived by her children, Adriana Mordente and Tony-nominated actress Lisa Mordente.
