Rita Moreno says she used Elvis Presley to make Marlon Brando jealous after he cheated on her

‘I thought of those panties, and I said yes!’ she said

Rita Moreno has said she used Elvis Presley to get back at Marlon Brando after he cheated on her.

Moreno, 89, appeared on The View while promoting her role in Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, which comes 60 years after she appeared in the original screen version.

Discussing being “constantly” cheated on by the Godfather actor, with whom she was in a relationship for eight years, Moreno said: “I found lingerie in his house and, of course, I was heartbroken, and I went home in tears. Really, I was naïve – and I was angry too, just furious.”

Fortuitously, she said that, the next day, she was contacted by Presley’s representatives.

“The next day, the phone rings, and I hear, ‘This is Colonel Parker, my client is Elvis Presley, and Elvis spotted you at the 20th Century Fox commissary, and he liked what he saw. And he would like very much to meet you. Would you like to meet him?’

She added: “And I thought of those panties, and I said, ‘Yes, I would.’”

Moreno went on to date Presley “several times”, saying she found him “sweet but boring”.

Rita Moreno dated Marlon Brando after meeting him aged 22 (Getty Images for Sony Pictures T)

Her relationship with Brando began after they met on the set of 1952 film Désirée when she was 22.

Speaking about their time together in Netflix documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It, Moreno said: “He was the daddy that I couldn’t please. I didn’t know that – I wasn’t aware of that at all.

“But he was the one I wanted to please, he was the one I wanted to be married to.”

She previously called him “a big love of mine in my life”.

Brando died on 1 July 2004, aged 80.

West Side Story is released in cinemas on 10 December. Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go is available for Digital Download in the UK now.