25 Things You Might Not Learn About 'West Side Story'

The film version of 'West Side Story' appears enjoy it happens to be a part of our collective reminiscences. The sounds and pictures in the street-gang update of 'Romeo and Juliet' have resonated around lower over time, as refracted in other movies (like Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Outsiders'), music videos (Michael Jackson's 'Beat It'), Bruce Springsteen lyrics ("There is a ballet being fought against in the alley") as well as tv shows (this year of 'Glee') to ensure that -- even when you haven't seen 'West Side Story' -- you are feeling you realize it. Still, there is lots concerning the classic movie musical, launched half a century ago today (on March. 18, 1961) that you might not know. Read onto find out about the real-existence gangbangers hired for that film, how star Natalie Wood almost got male lead Richard Beymer and herself fired in the film, and just how the co-director who had been fired in mid-shoot wound up winning an Oscar. 1. Regardless of the movie's NY street feel, the majority of it had been shot on the soundstage in Hollywood. The famous prologue, however, was shot around the gritty Manhattan roads, in the western world 60s (among tenements going to be torn lower to create method for Lincoln subsequently Center) as well as in The spanish language Harlem (around East 110th Street). Ballroom dancers sustained some injuries from jumping about around the hard pavement, but individuals were not the only real injuries they risked. Local people bothered the entertainers by tossing rocks and shedding objects off roofs before the filmmakers hired a real street gang to safeguard them. 'West Side Story' - Prologue 2. Some audiences who'd loved the 1957 Broadway musical were miffed that Ray Kert and Carol Lawrence were not even thought to reprise the roles of Tony and Maria within the movie. However the producers wanted a cast that looked youthful enough to become teens, and also the Broadway leads were both about 30. Nevertheless, when they wound up casting two 23-year-olds within the leads, the majority of the gangbangers and gals they hired were indeed near to 30. 3. Elvis was contacted to experience Tony, but Col. Tom Parker switched the studio lower, favoring the anodyne musicals his client had been making more than one that will have experienced him carrying a switchblade. (Though he'd already performed a street kid driven to violence such movies as 'Jailhouse Rock' and 'King Creole.') If Elvis tried the film, he'd have wound up playing opposite real-existence ex-girlfriend Wood. 4. Other people who almost performed Tony: Marlon Brando, Tab Hunter, Anthony Perkins, Russ Tamblyn, Burt Reynolds, Troy Donahue, Bobby Darin, Richard Chamberlain, Dennis Hopper, Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood. Hunter (age 30), Reynolds (26) and Chamberlain (26) counseled me considered too old. The versatile Darin was too busy. Brando wanted to get it done but figured that, at 34, he was far too old. Tamblyn wound up using the role of Jets leader Lick. Beatty was co-director Robert Wise's first choice, and that he even examined with then lover/'Splendor within the Grass' co-star Wood. Ultimately, the filmmakers opted for the small-known Beymer. 5. Stars considered for Maria incorporated Katherine Hepburn, Barbara Luna, Jill St. John, Diane Baker, Valery Harper, Elizabeth Ashley, and Suzanne Pleshette. Hepburn dropped out when she grew to become pregnant. 6. Wood wanted to complete 'West Side Story,' but she understood if she switched lower Warner Bros. forthcoming melodrama 'Parrish,' studio chief Jack Warner would not loan her towards the rival U . s . Artists. So she photoshopped a bout of tonisillitis. That trick got her from 'Parrish,' however it backfired when she contracted a significant situation of pneumonia and almost needed to give up of 'West Side Story' too. Fortunately, she retrieved over time. (Pneumonia also struck cast member Eliot Feld, who performed Baby John, throughout the NY shoot.) 7. Feld was one of many veterans from the Broadway production who arrived roles within the film. Others incorporated Tony Mordente (Action), Tucker Cruz (Ice), and Jay Norman (Pepe). George Chakiris, who performed Sharks leader Bernardo, had performed Lick around the London stage. 8. A couple of people from the Broadway cast ended up getting to reprise their roles within the movie: Carole D'Andrea (Velma), Tommy Abbott (Gee-Tar) and William Bramley (Officer Krupke). 9. David Winters performed Baby John on stage along with a-rab within the movie. On stage, it is a-rab whose beating through the Sharks sparks a rumble, whilst in the movie, it's Baby John. Had Winters' roles been corrected, he'd happen to be beaten up both occasions. 10. Stefanie Forces, then going through happens title Taffy Paul, was hired like a chorus dancer but needed to give up because she was underage and might have needed an on-set tutor along with a shorter time-table. Years later, obviously, she'd co-star with Wood's husband, Robert Wagner, on TV's 'Hart to Hart.' 11. The scope from the project am large the studio made the decision to separate the workload between two company directors. Jerome Robbins, who directed and choreographed the Broadway show was hired despite never getting directed a movie before. Veteran representative Robert Smart was hired despite never getting designed a musical. It had been made the decision that Smart would handle the drama moments and Robbins the musical amounts. But Robbins' perfectionism started to tug the film lower. His exacting demands and endless rehearsals required a toll around the ballroom dancers. ("They did not dance from pleasure, they danced from fear," stated music supervisor Saul Chaplin.") Soon the film was behind schedule and $300,000 over budget. Smart defended Robbins, but he was soon requested to complete the film by themself. Robbins' choreography continued to be, however the only completed amounts he shot that stay in the film were the prologue, 'America,' 'Cool,' and 'Something's Coming.' 12. Robbins labored Wood 16 hrs each day, until she begged to become fired in the film. She also wanted Beymer fired, worrying about his insufficient singing and dancing chops (despite the fact that her song-and-dance abilities were just like limited). Eventually, she determined ways to get together with both Robbins and Beymer, as the company directors determined how you can shoot round her dance restrictions. 13. For the stars' vocal restrictions, most fans realize that Wood's singing voice was named by Marni Nixon (who'd perform the same for Katherine Hepburn 3 years later in 'My Fair Lady'). Wood herself did not know, however. She'd assumed her very own singing voice could be used, a minimum of for that lower-register parts, and did not learn she'd be named before the shoot was over. Beymer was named by Jimmy Bryant. 14. There is other vocal doubling happening too. Tucker Cruz (Ice) also sang Tamblyn's part in 'The Jet Song,' though Tamblyn's own voice is heard throughout 'Gee, Officer Krupke' and 'Quintet.' 15. As Anita (Bernardo's sister and Maria's confidante), Rita Moreno sang on 'America,' but Betty Ward was hired to dub her lower notes on 'A Boy Like This.A At the time the vocals for 'Quintet' were recorded, however, both Moreno and Ward were sick, so Nixon walked in, singing for Anita and Maria. The like film, the song really was a quartet. 16. 'West Side Story' was no. 2 box office hit of 1961, behind only Disney's '101 Dalmatians.' The film, which cost $six million to create, has gained back $43 million in the box office during the period of multiple releases over time. 17. The film was popular overseas, too. It performed for 4 years straight at Paris's George V Theater, setting an archive. 18. In 1962, the film won 10 Academy awards, an archive for any musical that stands even today. One of the honors: Best Picture (a prize that visited Smart, like a producer), Best Director (shared by Robbins and Smart, who was adamant that his fired collaborator remain credited as co-director), Best Supporting Actor (Chakiris) and finest Supporting Actress (Moreno). The only real Oscar it had been nominated for your it did not win was Best Modified Script (Ernest Lehman). Smart and Robbins were the very first pair ever to talk about a pointing award (and also the last, until Joel and Ethan Coen won for 2007's 'No Country for Old Males.') Robbins may be the only director ever to win an Oscar for his sole feature pointing credit he never directed another film. Smart, however, continued to repeat his task 4 years later, winning Best Picture and finest Director for 'The Seem of Music.' 19. Rita Moreno, the only real actual Puerto Rican one of the principal cast, grew to become just the second Hispanic artist (after fellow Puerto Rican José Ferrer ten years earlier) to win an Oscar. However it did not help her career the way in which she expected. "', '. I demonstrated them. I did not make another movie for seven years after winning the Oscar," she remembered inside a 2008 interview. "Before 'West Side Story,' I had been always offered the stereotypical Latina roles. The Conchitas and Lolitas in westerns. I had been always barefoot. It had been humiliating, embarrassing stuff. However I made it happen because there is little else. After 'West Side Story,' it had been virtually exactly the same factor. Lots of gang tales." Today, Moreno is just one of only 10 stars who've won the EGOT grand slam of competitive entertainment honours (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and it is the one that made it happen within the least length of time (14 years). 20. Leonard Bernstein, who composed the tunes, complained the movie was over-orchestrated. The film used some 90 music artists, around three occasions as much as the Broadway production. 21. The soundtrack album was extremely popular and won a Grammy for the best Soundtrack. Other near-synchronised instrumental versions from the score, by lounge pianists Ferrante & Teicher by jazz bandleader Stan Kenton, were large retailers too. 22. On her work dubbing Moreno's vocals, Ward went uncredited around the album. She prosecuted the film's producers and also the CBS record label for $60,000 in damages. The suit was settled from court. 23. Nixon was refused royalties too. She finally got a bit of when Bernstein decided to offer her some of his percentage. 24. Nowadays, Russ Tamblyn is much better referred to as father of Amber Tamblyn, from the 'Sisterhood from the Traveling Pants' movies and TV's 'Joan of Arcadia' and 'House.' 25. From the 'West Side Story' cast alumni, Wood had probably the most celebrated career, like a leading lady such films as 'Love Using the Proper Stranger,' 'Inside Daisy CLover,' 'This Rentals Are Condemned,' and 'Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.' Moreno has proven her flexibility in a number of media today, the first kind 'Electric Company' star is playing Fran Drescher's mother on TV's 'Happily Divorced.' Chakiris starred such movies as 'Diamond Mind,' 'Is Paris Burning?' and 'The Youthful Women of Rochefort" before embracing TV within the seventies and 1980s, retiring from acting and trying out jewellery design. Nearly 3 decades after 'West Side Story's release, Richard Beymer and Tamblyn were reunited as people from the ensemble cast of David Lynch's 1990 TV drama series 'Twin Peaks.' Beymer performed the sinister hotal magnate Ben Horne, while Tamblyn was the mysterious mental health specialist Lawrence Jacoby. Both still maintained flashes from the old mystique and menace. 'Cause when you are a Jet, you are a Jet completely. Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook Follow Gary Susman on Twitter: @garysusman RELATED