Vicki Abelson's Broadcast: The Road Taken

Third time is the charm! Twice scheduled to grace my living room pre-pandemic, what a Thanksgiving gift Academy Award and Golden Globe Winner, George Chakiris is. Perfectly timed. Ridiculously easy on the eyes, he defies the passage of time and is as gracefully humble in word and deed as he is gliding across a dance floor, or the streets of the barrio, as the case may be. Forever, Bernardo, we dove into a multitude of his other films, from his first, singing with a boys choir opposite Katherine Hepburn in Song of Love, to background dancer alongside Marilyn Monroe, Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosalind Russell, and Cyd Charisse, to name but a few. Taking his first dance class at 19, he did over a dozen films almost immediately, and went from gypsy to starring in the London production of West Side Story, as… wait for it, Riff. George had not only never acted, he’d nary taken an acting class, and yet in short shrift, he was earning an Oscar, as Bernardo opposite Rita Moreno, in the winningest m