Rita Moreno had a complicated and often traumatic relationship with Marlon Brando, and now, she’s revealing even more intimate details from her time with the iconic actor. “Ultimately, it was exciting to be with Marlon. Oh, my God, it was exciting,” she shared during Variety‘s “Actors on Actors” series with actress Jessica Chastain. “He was extraordinary in many, many ways, but he was a bad guy. He was a bad guy when it came to women. I was such a different person then. I had all the makings of a doormat.”
The One Day at a Time actress continued, “So whenever he lied, I would look at him and I’d say, ‘Marlon, look at me.’ And he’d start to grin this kind of — I don’t want to use the bad word — that poop-eating grin. I could read him like a book and that’s why he loved me, and that’s why he mistreated me in so many ways.”
Rita then revealed that it was during her relationship with the A Streetcar Named Desire actor that she “tried to end my life with pills in his house. That’s how I tried to do it.” She continued, “I didn’t understand that if I was going to kill this pathetic, sad, trod-upon Rita, the rest of Rita was also going to go with me. I really didn’t seem to understand that. But that’s what the attempt was. It was an attempt.”
Although she dealt with a lot of trauma in her past, the West Side Story actress has never let that deter her from moving forward with her life in a meaningful way. The The 89-year-old Academy Award-winning actress revealed that she doesn’t plan on stopping acting in an interview for Variety’s “Power of Women” issue, which was released on Sept. 29, 2021.
Even though she’s graced the silver screen for over 70 years, Rita admitted she was still as passionate about acting as ever, letting nothing get in her way. “The only way I can retire is if I can’t walk. And even then, there’s always a wheelchair — or roller skates,” she told Variety. “Why should I have to play a grandmother simply because I’m old? Can I be a lawyer? A scientist? So far, the answer is … not so much,” she said.
