Tony Mordente has handed away on June 11 on the age of 88. Mordente’s journey within the arts started on the Excessive College of Performing Arts and the American Ballet Theater College, the place he developed his dance abilities. In line with a number of reviews his loss of life got here following a quick sickness.
He gained vital recognition along with his portrayal of A-Rab within the 1957 Broadway and 1958 West Finish productions of West Facet Story.
“I used to be an actual ballet fan,” he informed PBS in 2007.
“I used to be solely a ballet fan and I knew nothing else about the rest however ballet, and that is all I ever needed to know. And I went to the Met one night time when Ballet Theatre got here again into city. I used to be a scholarship scholar in a ballet theatre on the time.
“And I went to see, I feel it was part of the Black Swan, and so they additionally had fancy free on the… program. And I mentioned, , I do not know if I need to keep for this. It is not likely ballet, . And I, I do not suppose I’ve ever seen something that modified my life and my profession as rapidly as I did.”
Tony Mordente profession and private life
It was throughout this Broadway manufacturing that he met his future spouse, Chita Rivera, who handed away in January. That they had a daughter, Lisa, in 1958, and divorced in 1966.
Mordente additionally starred as Motion within the 1961 movie model of West Facet Story and went on to choreograph for Broadway and tv, together with The Ed Sullivan Present and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour within the Sixties.
Within the Nineteen Seventies, Mordente transitioned to directing, engaged on standard TV exhibits resembling MAS*H, Household Ties, The A-Workforce, and seventh Heaven. In 1978, he married Jean Fraser, with whom he had a second daughter, Adriana Mordente.