Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/216003
44 SAG-AFTRA | Fall 2013 | SAGAFTRA.org and a suicide attempt to help make that happen. And it wasn't an attempt, I really meant business. KH: You two would later work together on The Night of the Following Day [in 1968]. RH: I went to France to make the film with my husband's full understanding. It was the last time Marlon looked good. It was a fascinating movie. But nobody ever saw it. KH: For some reason I did and I liked it. You had some great scenes together because you had some knowledge of each other. RM: There was one scene that took place in that movie … where I'm very angry at him. My character accuses him of being with someone else and slaps him and a fight ensues. Now I really have a thing about violence, even when it's make believe. I'll do anything I can not to hit somebody. But Marlon said "You have to really smack me. You can't fake it or I'm not going to react the right way." So we rehearsed it a lot and we improvised most of our dialogue. And we get to Above, left: Moreno lies next to her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as husband Leonard Gordon and daughter Fernanda Gordon Fisher watch in 1995. Center: Well known for championing causes, Moreno rallies attendees at the AIDS Walk Los Angeles in 2002. Right: On set as Fran Drescher's mother on TV Land's Happily Divorced. Below: Moreno visits Marlon Brando on the set of Desiree in 1954. Moreno writes in her memoir about their contentious eight-year romantic relationship. the part and I slapped him and something so frightening happened and he looked at me … and I thought, "Oh my god, he is taking in all the pond scum that we had been through together for eight years." And he hauled off and socked me so hard on the jaw. I went berserk. And then all my pond scum stuff came up. It was crazy. And I attacked him and he got frightened. It's the realest scene. The director said I'm not cutting a thing and I'm leaving it just the way it is. The next day, I told my husband the dailies were being shown and to go see them because I was too embarrassed. He came back and said, "Wow you two are really terrific actors." What a mensch, my husband. KH: What a mensch. And you're a mensch. What a great storyteller you are. Thank you for being here and congratulations on your award. RM: Thank you so much. Click here to watch their Actor to Actor video CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: VINCE BUCCI/GETTY IMAGES; FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES; TV LAND; 20TH CENTURY FOX/GETTY IMAGES day again, I am not going to play those roles anymore. I didn't do a film for seven years until Popi with Alan Arkin. KH: And it takes real courage. RM: Yes. And again I played a Latina, but I didn't play a cliché, stereotypical Latina. I played Alan Arkin's girlfriend, no accent. KH: You've done so much now in films and television. Tell me some roles that that you've enjoyed. RM: I loved working on Oz because you talk about going against type! I remember when I had a dinner with Tom Fontana who produced and wrote it, and he says, "Why don't you play the nun?" I'm seeing Sally Field at the time, and he said, "No. She is nothing remotely like that … You have to think carefully [about this], because you're not going to look pretty. You are not going to look youthful." And I really did some deep thinking … life is going to change for you once you do something like this. And I said "You know what? That's okay." KH: In any way you want, tell me a bit about your relationship with Marlon Brando. RM: My relationship with Marlon initially was that he was gorgeous. He was the king of sexual gods. Marlon really was charismatic. He was the kind of man who would stop traffic. So what's a poor little Puerto Rican girl to do for god's sake? I fell madly in love with him and he fell madly in love with me, but it turns out he was the king of philanderers and he was not about to be trapped in one relationship with one woman. It took eight years for me to wrest myself loose from that