“He put me in a red wig. It never occurred to him to say ‘No she’s too Latina, her name is Latina'. He just thought I’d be fine for it! And, and he taught me a little flapper step to do at the post-premiere party scene and Gene Kelly gave me some choreography. Dancing cheek-to-cheek with somebody and doing a tango, and it was an amazing experience. What a thrill. What a privilege. And then many years later to have him come to me and say ‘God you were great in West Side Story’ I just about dropped my teeth. To have someone like that. I don’t think of myself, for reasons that are a mystery even to me, but I don’t think of myself as someone who was admired by great people.

Oh it was right back to the ethnic stuff [after Singin' in the Rain]. There were people like Gene Kelly around, they seemed to call that the ‘theatre sensibility' or the ‘New York sensibility’… even to this day it’s difficult. It’s still difficult.”

- Rita Moreno (Zelda Zanders), interview with the Television Academy (2000).