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Video: Patrick Pacheco Opens Up About Putting Pen to Paper with Chita Rivera
May 17, 2024
She was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero—until the entertainment world renamed her. But Dolores—the irreverent side of the sensual, dark and ferocious Chita—was always present center stage, and was influential in creating some of Broadway most iconic and acclaimed roles, including Anita in West Side Story‚ the part that made her a star—Rosie in Bye Bye, Birdie, Velma in Chicago, and Aurora in Kiss of the Spider Woman. In this video, watch as co-author Patrick Pacheco chats with Richard Ridge about the new memoir!
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Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge. I'm at the Rosevale Cocktail Room at Civilian NYC
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to catch up with Patrick Pacheco, who co-wrote Cheetah, a memoir, along with the legendary Cheetah Rivera
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So, Patrick, I'm thrilled to be sitting with you here at the Rosevale Cocktail Room here at Civilian NYC
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Isn't this amazing, this room and this hotel? All these shows, all these costumes
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I mean, you can feel the energy. Yeah, well, this is great. The book is out
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You just wrote Cheetah, a memoir, I mean, with Cheetah Rivera. How did you get her to say
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yes, I'll write the book? Well, the thing about it is you're absolutely right
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I think the one song that Cheetah said she could never really sing was
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I'm Still Here. Yeah. Because it's a brilliant song, and she could do it well
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but she couldn't feel it because she said, Patrick, I'm always here
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I've never been there, so how could I still be here? So COVID happened, and there she was
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So she couldn't go in her very active life doing what she was used to doing
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So it was time to reflect. And so we kind of worked on it together
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you know, in a way. We kind of worked on it on speculation
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and I said, Cheetah, let's see what comes up. And let me do two sample chapters
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for a publishing company that will sell it, will buy it. And I said, I know that we're going to do
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a chapter on West Side Story, and we're going to do a chapter on Sammy Davis Jr
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and Mr. Wonderful. And she was great about the West Side Story chapter
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And then Mr. Wonderful came, okay. Mr. Wonderful came, and she didn't
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she wasn't that anxious. She spent one sentence on Mr. Wonderful and Sammy Davis Jr. in her show
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The Dancer's Life. And so I said, no, 1955 was an important
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they were all important years for you, Cheetah. But it was an ascendant year
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1955 for you and Mr. Wonderful. And the year that happened. And I think we can reveal a lot of things
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that I think people will want to know about. So she's a good sport, as you well know
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because you've interviewed her so many times, and you've known her for so long
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So she's a good sport because Cheetah has always done in a way
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which she was told to do by her mother, by Doris Jones, by her early ballet teachers
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She learned that discipline, and she just wants to be a good vessel
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Yeah, a good sport. A good sport. So not only is it Cheetah's voice in this book
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you got her to be Dolores. So she could have that other side, right
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Which I think is fascinating. Well, that was exactly it, because I said to her, Cheetah
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after 70 years in the public eye, what is it that people don't know about you
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And she famously says, you know, I'm nowhere near nice, nearly as nice as people think I am
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So I said, great, let's introduce the public to her. Let's introduce her to Dolores
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And I said, Cheetah, I know you're not going to be, we're going to come up to something
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and you're going to say, I don't want to say that. And I said, great, we'll let Dolores say it
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And she copped to it. She said, that's a good idea. Yeah
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What were some of the things that you learned about her that you didn't know
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Because I thought I knew everything about her, too. So what did you learn that you didn't know
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Well, I think one of the fun parts, well, there were so many fun parts of the book
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I didn't know much about her ballet training. I knew that she had gotten a scholarship
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to the School of American Ballet. But I didn't know as much about
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Doris Jones and her early years. And she was a Hellion when she was young
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And her mother said, you're going to ballet class. And in one of the really fateful introductions
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and she still considers to this day, her second mother to be Doris Jones
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the African-American woman who started this school in Washington, D.C. And Louis Johnson was her partner at that time
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And then once she went from the Jones-Haywood School in Washington, D.C., getting a scholarship to SAB
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she was then introduced into this world of ballet with very sort of eccentric Russian teachers
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and the whole Balanchine world as well. But that was her foundation
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That was her discipline that she carried all the way through to this day of being there on time
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on doing what you have to do. And it would come up in various times
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not only in her career, but when she had a leg-shattering accident
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And the way she got through it, and she told me this
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was that she could hear Doris Jones in her head saying, Cheetah, you can get through this
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Cheetah, you'll dance again. And she did. So I love that. I think one of the greatest bits of advice
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that Doris Jones gave her was the day of that audition, which was, Cheetah, stay in your lane. Absolutely
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And that's something I've lived by, that she told me many, many years ago that I live by
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Just stay in your lane. Because everybody else is taken, so be yourself
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Yeah. How proud are you of the book? Oh, gosh. I think I'm proudest that she's proud of the book
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I think that's it. I think, I've got to tell you, that every time I wrote a chapter
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we would talk for hours and hours and hours. And there was this voluminous amount of material
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that I'd get from her. And then I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours at the Library of Performing Arts
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I have a hundred boxes of memorabilia of Fred Ebb at the Library of Performing Arts
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And I've gone through all of them. And that would prompt her memory about certain things
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So I would have this mountain of material. And then, as you well know, you fight it
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You know, it's the tyranny of the blank page. Where do you start
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So I have a lot of sleepless nights about, you know, just in my head, what makes it immediate
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What grabs it? What is this chapter about in her life? Then I would do a draft, and then I would send it to her
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And then, trembling, I would call her, and I would just wait to hear
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Okay, Cheetah, we'll read this through. It was always a fascinating experience to hear her voice
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reading the chapter that I had just written for her. And we had a lot of laughs
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And actually, she's so supportive that out of 120,000 words, she probably changed 20 or 30, maybe 50, if that
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And so oftentimes we would laugh a lot while she was reading it
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But there were also times because there are a lot of ghosts in this book
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There are a lot of people that were dear to her, very dear to her, that she lost
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Even during the whole HIV-AIDS epidemic, she would talk about the prayers and the pictures
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that she would have on her refrigerator years after they had passed
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And those were moments when we just had to stop and both collect ourselves
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Yeah, yeah. What do you hope audiences take away from this book
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Well, I know what she would want, what I would want is what she would want
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And that is that if you want a life in the theater
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be disciplined, be rigid, give 100%. You're not going to get anywhere
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if you give anything less than 100%. Know that you're there to support others
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It's not about you. If Dolores ever reared her head, and believe me, it did
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Watch out. Watch out if she did, right? And she would rear her head
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if she thought in the company there was somebody that was out for themselves
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and not for the company. Then, yes, you're right. Watch out. Because Dolores will rip you anew, so to speak
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No, but she was always, like I said, it's about the company. She was always a dancer, a gypsy
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She was always a company member. She led the ship, of course, but she was always, everybody
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she treated everybody the same, which I think is wonderful because it's the collection of everybody
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connected to a show. And as long as everyone's doing 100%, everything, it should be 100%. Absolutely
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You asked me something earlier about what I was surprised, and I was surprised all the time
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but I was surprised that she never considered herself a star until she was 60
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and had won her second Tony Award. And Freddie had always said to her
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Cheetah, you have to act like a star if you want to be treated like a star
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And it says in the book, I wasn't that interested in being a star
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And so she felt that sometime, yeah, I guess I am a star
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But this was at 60. And as it says, it's one of the most fascinating chapters
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in the book about Kiss the Spider Woman where, like The Visit
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she wasn't the first choice. And it was just, she believed in fate
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She believed in destiny. And she could wait. And the role would come around to her
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There's even a point where in Kiss of the Spider Woman, they were looking for somebody
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to replace what had been done at the tryout, which was not successful
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And to move on, they were thinking of everybody but Cheetah. And so she says in the book
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so who has a charismatic presence that can sing and dance and is Latin
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And Cheetah says, I've got just the person. And she takes the entire creative team down
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to see Donna Murphy in Song of Singapore. I mean, that's the generosity of spirit
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number one, that she had. And Donna couldn't dance as well as
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the choreographer thought they could. And then they said, well, what about Cheetah
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And it was Frank Rich who sort of said they should get somebody like Cheetah
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And she thought, yeah, what about me? So she's always looking out for somebody else
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That's the best part of her spirit. The book is out April 25th on HarperOne
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It's also the audio, which is fascinating. Well, she's got such a wonderful, warm voice
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Just a really great voice. And one of the things that wasn't in the book
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was that I asked you, you know, you go to the Tony Awards
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and you go to the White House and you get standing ovations
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of 6,000 people at Radio City Music Hall standing for you. And wherever you go, you get these ovations
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What ovation meant the most to you? And she said, well, when I came out
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for the opening night of The Visit, I got an ovation that meant a tremendous amount to me
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I was so moved. And I said, do you know why that meant a lot to you
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And she said, no, why? And I said, well, you go to the Tony Awards
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and you go to the White House, you get back in your car, you go back home
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and you wait for the phone to ring. And you knew that when the ovation died down
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on opening night of The Visit, you would go to work and you would show them what you had been accumulating
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over 60 years of experience, 65 years of experience. And you knew that you would have a job the next night
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and the next night and the next night. I said, it's never been awards for you
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and it's never been about ovations for you, Chi. It's been about the work
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I love it. It's one of the best autobiographies, biographies. Like I said, the two of you working together
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it's one voice, it's her voice. Beautiful job. Like I said, Harper One available
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Books are sold anywhere. by Chita Rivera and Patrick Pacheco. Thank you so much for doing this
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Always a pleasure
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