1.
First, before filming began on West Side Story, several big Hollywood names were reportedly interested in starring in the movie, like Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor, Warren Beatty, Audrey Hepburn, Chita Rivera, Marlon Brando, and Robert Redford. According to George Chakiris, due to the fact that these legends were rumored to be starring in the movie, a lot of stage actors didn’t think they’d ever be cast.
2.
When it came time to do chemistry reads for potential Tony, Maria, Anita, Riff, and Bernardo casting choices, six scenes were chosen to use. They were the bridal shop scene with Maria, Tony, and Anita, the fire escape scene with Tony and Maria, the apartment scene after the rumble with Maria and Chino, Tony and Riff at Doc’s, Maria and Bernardo in the apartment, and Anita at Doc’s.
3.
Rita Moreno auditioned “many times” for Anita in West Side Story, where she completed singing and acting auditions to start, which she says went really well. The hardest part was when director Jerome Robbins said she would also have to do a dancing audition. She told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014, “I ran to the nearest dancing school and I literally signed up for every class, literally, that they had. I was truly killing myself, but I wanted that part so badly.”
4.
After Rita Moreno was officially offered the role, she almost turned it down once she realized the opening line in “America” she would have to sing. It originally called Puerto Rico an “ugly island” and an island of “tropic diseases.” However, Stephen Sondheim immediately changed the verse after her casting. The line changed to, “Puerto Rico, my heart’s devotion, let it sink back in the ocean.”
5.
Before being cast as Bernardo in the movie, George Chakiris played Riff in the West End production of West Side Story. Speaking to Fox News, Chakiris recalled studying for the role, saying, “I studied Ken LeRoy, the original Bernardo on stage, every night for a year and a half. So in a way, I was already learning and memorizing, which helped to make the role my own.”
6.
The last main role that was cast was Maria, with director Robert Wise initially insisting they find a relatively unknown actor. Casting for Maria was so difficult that they considered hiring someone who couldn’t sing, and they could dub the singing parts. According to Wise, they eventually landed on Natalie Wood after they saw her while watching Warren Beatty’s Splendor in the Grass screen test, where he was acting alongside Natalie. Wise abandoned the idea of an unknown actor for Wood, recalling, “The minute Natalie walked on, we forgot all about [Beatty] and [said], ‘There’s our Maria!'”
7.
Despite taking extensive singing lessons, Natalie Wood’s singing voice was dubbed in the final version of the film. Same with Richard Beymer’s voice. Marni Nixon and Jimmy Bryant provided the vocals for Maria and Tony, respectively. Their vocals were recorded live with the orchestra. In an interview with Nixon and Bryant in 2012, Nixon revealed that Wood did record her own version of every song, minus the high note in “Tonight,” and was reportedly initially told that a combo of her take and Nixon’s would be used in the film.
8.
Russ Tamblyn, who played Riff, initially tested for Tony, and it was a big deal that he was even allowed to audition because he was under contract with MGM, while the film was with United Artists. Tamblyn told the Guardian that due to his contract with MGM, he was told he had a “reputation to keep,” and he was almost not allowed to sign on to play Riff because of specific lines he’d have to sing in “Gee, Officer Krupke.”
9.
Rita Moreno was one of the few Puerto Rican actors who were cast. While speaking to NPR in 2001, Moreno recalled how, in order to make cast members look, act, and sound “more Puerto Rican,” they were told to use an accent, put on dark makeup, and more. She explained, “The thing that really bothered me the most is that they put the same very muddy, dark-colored makeup on every Shark girl and boy. And that really made me very upset. And I tried to get that changed. I said, ‘Look at us. We’re all, you know, many, many different colors.'”
10.
Filming of the opening number took place on 68th and Amsterdam and 110th and 2nd Ave in New York City. The 68th Street location is where Lincoln Center now stands. At the time of filming, the location was razed for construction, so the camera crews and directors used it to their advantage. They even shoveled shallow holes for the camera crew to be in so they could capture the dancers up above. The flattened portions of the construction zone made a perfect dance floor, too.
11.
The “Prologue,” which was shot in Manhattan, was initially scheduled to only last three weeks, but ended up running six. It put the entire movie over budget right from the start, since this was the first thing they filmed. Jerome Robbins was used to directing for the stage, and didn’t realize how much time went into setting up cameras, filming the action from a different angle, etc. Performers were reportedly “pushed to their breaking point,” with many revealing they had almost passed out and/or vomited during filming.
12.
In the original stage version of West Side Story, the boys were not featured in “America,” only Anita and the girls. Jerome Robbins made the decision to add Bernardo and the boys, according to Rita Moreno. She told The Talk in 2011, “Jerome Robbins put the boys in, and that’s what really, really made ‘America’ stand out because of the competition between the boys and girls.”
13.
The “America” set ended up being the most expensive set that was built on one of the Goldwyn sound stages for the movie. According to West Side Story: The Jets, the Sharks, and the Making of a Classic, Jerome Robbins asked that the walls on the set be changed at the last minute, and the tar paper floor that was used constantly melted under the lights and had to be changed. It took a long time to film the number, too, simply because costumes often had to be dried and changed due to the cast sweating while dancing so hard.
14.
Due to the demanding nature of the dance scenes, there were several injuries among cast members while filming West Side Story. Susan Oakes, who played Anybodys, suffered a punctured knee while filming “Cool” because she fell on a nail. And, Gina Trikonis was hospitalized with mono while filming “Gee, Officer Krupke,” so a body double was used in her place. If you watch the number closely, you’ll notice you don’t see Graziella’s face because of this.
15.
Natalie Wood reportedly “despised” Richard Beymer, who played Tony, according to Russ Tamblyn. He recalled that Wood had a “shit list” on her dressing room wall during filming, with Beymer’s name at the top of it. When Tamblyn asked her why Beymer’s name was up there, she reportedly told him, “I just don’t like him.” Some even speculated that Wood’s animosity towards Beymer stemmed from Robert Wagner, who was Wood’s husband at the time, not getting the role of Tony.
16.
While choreographing the dance numbers, Jerome Robbins would come up with “several versions of each section of each dance,” according to Rita Moreno. She told NPR, “If you were rehearsing ‘America’ with him, he would, after you did one version, would say, ‘OK, now let me see version B of section 2.’ So you were really learning anywhere from two to three other dances beside the original one.”
17.
“Cool” was one of the hardest numbers to film, simply because of the set. The parking garage was very wide (85 by 150 feet) and had a very low ceiling (eight feet). Due to the enclosed space, the garage acted as a “hellish sauna” for the actors once the lights were on. On top of the set, “Cool” was one of the numbers that Jerome Robbins had come up with several different dances for. According to Gina Trikonis, who played Riff’s girlfriend, “We were supposed to be able to pull out of our heads the one he wanted to see in an instant — be it version one or twelve, or any in between.”
18.
While filming, Jerome Robbins instructed that the Jets and Sharks stay apart on set. In fact, Russ Tamblyn said the groups of actors never really talked to each other outside of the scenes they shared until filming had wrapped. He also told the Guardian, “There was never any animosity, but we used to play pranks on each other.”
19.
Jerome Robbins was notably fired midway through the production, with Robert Wise taking over full-time. There were several factors that led to Robbins’ firing, namely, how behind schedule and over budget the movie was getting. Producer Walter Mirisch recalled telling Robbins he was fired, a “terrible scene.” Wise agreed to step up as co-director, working with Robbins’ assistants to finish the movie. At the time, only “Prologue,” “America,” “Cool,” “I Feel Pretty,” and “One Hand, One Heart” had been shot, with the rest of the movie needing to be filmed.
20.
The hardest scene for Rita Moreno to film was the scene in Doc’s store, where Anita is attacked by the boys. Moreno recalled to NPR that they rehearsed the number for weeks, and it took seven days to film it. During one take, after having the other actors curse and throw her around all day, Moreno said she just started to sob. In her documentary, Just a Girl Who Decided To Go For It, she recalled, “I could not stop crying. And all of the wounds that I thought had closed, all the scars, opened all over again. It was just astonishing.”
21.
And finally, due to the intense choreography and dance sequences, costume designer Irene Sharaff and her team had to make multiple copies of tailor-made costumes. This made it so the costume budget for the film was pretty high. According to West Side Story: The Jets, the Sharks, and the Making of a Classic, the most expensive costumes were Natalie Wood’s and Rita Moreno’s dresses for the dance at the gym, with each costing around $4,000.
Is there another West Side Story behind-the-scenes fact that you love that isn’t mentioned above? Tell us about it in the comments below!
And you can buy the book West Side Story: The Jets, the Sharks, and the Making of a Classic by Richard Barrios and Turner Classic Movies here.