Rita Moreno’s tempestuous relationship with Marlon Brando led to a suicide attempt.
The EGOT-winner opened up about how the recent and heavy romance with the late display screen legend brought about her to nearly find yourself in an early grave.
“I tried to end my life with pills in his house,” she shared with actress Jessica Chastain throughout the newest installment of Variety’s Actors On Actors collection.
“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,” she added. “I really didn’t seem to understand that. But that’s what the attempt was. It was an attempt.”
The 90-year-old actress, at the moment starring in Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, met Brando on the set of the 1954 movie Desiree when she was 22.
“Ultimately, it was exciting to be with Marlon,” she dished, “Oh, my God, it was exciting.”
“He was extraordinary in many, many ways, but he was a bad guy,” Moreno added about The Godfather icon. “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 Puerto Rican magnificence, who received an Oscar for her position within the authentic West Side Story in 1961, stated Brando lied to her all through their almost eight-year relationship.
But she was on to him the whole time.
“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,” she revealed.
“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.
The On the Waterfront star tried to rekindle their romance years later while they were filming 1969′s The Night Of The Following Day.
But nothing materialised.
Rita Moreno and Marlon Brando in the 1968 film ‘The Night Of The Following Day’. Photo: everettcollection.com
“What’s interesting is that he wanted to renew,” Moreno defined throughout the digital chat. “I was now married. I had a beautiful child, Fernanda.
“He was ready to have a go again. I didn’t want that. But he did. He lost a big part of himself, I think. The good part of him, the good Marlon that Rita loved. It was very complicated. Really, really complicated.”
Brando died in 2004 at 80 years previous.
Aside from his acclaimed display screen performances, Brando was often known as a infamous womaniser who married a number of occasions and fathered 11 youngsters. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
Those affected by psychological well being points or considering suicide can attain out to the Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service (03-2935 9935/ 014-322 3392); Talian Kasih (15999/ 019-261 5999 on WhatsApp); Jakim’s (Department of Islamic Development Malaysia) household, social and group care centre (0111-959 8214 on WhatsApp); and Befrienders Kuala Lumpur (03-7627 2929 or go to befrienders.org.my/centre-in-malaysia for a full record of numbers nationwide and working hours, or electronic mail [email protected]).
