Two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Rita Moreno, 90, and Marlon Brando, were together for eight years in the 1950s and 1960s, but their relationship was anything but blissful.
Brando was “constantly” cheating on Moreno and to get back at him the Puerto Rican born actress decided to get back at him.
“We were locked in the ultimate folie à deux, a crazy love that lasted for years, until one day I quite literally was forced out of a coma and had to choose life over him,” she wrote in her memoir, Rita Moreno.
The two first met in 1954 on the set of Désirée. She was 22, and he was 30.
“Just meeting him that first day sent my body temperature skyrocketing as though I had been dropped into a very hot bath, and I went into a full-body blush,” she wrote in her self-titled memoir. “It was the sort of rush that inspires poetry and songs.”
“To say that he was a great lover — sensual, generous, delightfully inventive — would be gravely understating what he did not only to my body, but for my soul. Every aspect of being with Marlon was thrilling, because he was more engaged in the world than anyone else I’d ever known.”
However, while the couple shared extremely good times, there were also extremely bad times.
Unlike Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell who have been by each other’s side for decades, Moreno and Brando broke up several times during their eight years together.
And during their on-and-off again periods, Brando fell in love with other women, married twice, and fathered children.
“I found lingerie in his house and, of course, I was heartbroken, and I went home in tears — really, I was naïve — and I was angry too, just furious,” Moreno told Joy Behar on The View in December 2021.
“The next day, the phone rings, and I hear ‘Miss Moreno?’ I said, ‘Uh, yeah?’ ” she recalled. “‘This is Colonel Parker, my client is Elvis Presley, and Elvis spotted you at the 20th Century Fox commissary, and he liked what he saw.’”
Moreno, who is an EGOT winner, wanted to get back at Brando so she agreed to meet Elvis and “dated [Elvis] several times,” however she found him “sweet but boring.”
The King of Rock and Roll was too much of a “country boy” for her, and they didn’t last long.
Brando learned of Moreno’s dates with Elvis, and he wasn’t happy.
“He started to throw chairs. He was so angry. It was wonderful. And I just sat there as he threw chairs and carried on,” she recalled.
Soon after the couple learned they were pregnant, but Brando was not pleased and arranged for Moreno to have an abortion.
Unfortunately the abortion did not go as planned and Moreno had to be rushed to the hospital. While she recovered, he went to film another movie and fall in love with another actress.
When he returned home Moreno had enough. She found sleeping pills, took a handful, and laid in bed. Brando’s assistant found her and she was rushed to the hospital where she had her stomach pumped.
Following her suicide attempt, her therapist urged her and Brando never to speak to each other again. They both complied.
Although later in life, Moreno welcomed Brando back into her life as a family friend.
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