Welcome to a new Wildcard Wednesday, on a Tuesday! Coverage of Two And A Half Men will officially begin tomorrow, but in the meantime, I must pay tribute to the late, great Chita Rivera, who passed last Tuesday at the age of 91. This talented lady was, of course, best known for her remarkable theatre career and her many fabulous turns in a handful of Broadway classics — West Side Story (1957), Bye Bye Birdie (1960), and Chicago (1975), among many others. The finest way to honor her, always, is to give those iconic cast albums a spin and imagine how fortunate one would have been to see her live on stage, sparkling and in her element.
However, I want to pay my respects in a manner unique to this blog — by sharing a sample of her brief and lesser-known sitcom work. As regular readers may recall, Rivera was a recurring cast member on the final California-set season of The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971-1974, CBS), in which she and Richard Dawson played this series’ equivalent of Millie and Jerry Helper — the leading couple’s next-door neighbors, Connie and Richard Richardson. They’re both sadly underused, but it’s still a delight to watch Rivera reunite with her former Birdie pal Dick Van Dyke, and though the show itself had some major weaknesses — primarily in comparison to its star’s much superior ’60s classic — its individual scripts were smarter and funnier than so much of the contemporaneous competition, evidencing the low-concept realism that Mary Tyler Moore was currently championing in a progression of the first Dick Van Dyke Show’s ethos.
Unfortunately, there’s no terrific Chita Rivera episode of The New Dick Van Dyke Show. However, her best half hour is “Commercial Housewives,” in which Connie and Dick’s wife Jenny (Hope Lange) are cast in a spot-remover commercial. It’s no great shakes in terms of character, and it’s not very original in terms of idea, but it gives Rivera the most with which to play, and in honor of her memory, I’m happy to share it here with you. This first aired on February 25, 1974 and was written by Dick Clair & Jenna McMahon, directed by Peter Baldwin. Enjoy!
Come back next week for a new Wildcard! And stay tuned tomorrow for Two And A Half Men!