Marquita Rivera a.k.a. "Queen of Latin Rhythm", was a Puerto Rican

Puerto Rican people

A Puerto Rican is a person who was born in Puerto Rico.Puerto Ricans born and raised in the continental United States are also sometimes referred to as Puerto Ricans, although they were not born in Puerto Rico...

 actress, singer and dancer.

Dubbed the "Queen of La Conga", "Queen of Latin Rhythm" and "Latin Hurricane" during various stages of her career, Rivera, went on to enjoy a strong musical career both in the United States and in her native Puerto Rico.

Early life

Born Maria Heroina Rivera de Santiago in Fajardo, Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

, she was the youngest in a family of seven sons and five daughters. The de Santiagos moved to New York City when Rivera was at an early age and it was there that she started a musical career. Studying dance and flamenco at an early age (6), she originally studied with Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...

's father, Eduardo Cansino. Rita herself gave Rivera a set of castanets as a gift.

Acting and singing career

A childhood friend of bandleader Tito Puente

Tito Puente

Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...

, Rivera, accompanied by her costume designer mother, went on to earn a featured role as a dancer with "George White's Scandals of 1936

George White's Scandals

George White's Scandals were a long-running string of Broadway revues produced by George White that ran from 1919–1939, modelled after the Ziegfeld Follies. The "Scandals" launched the careers of many entertainers, including W.C. Fields, the Three Stooges, Ray Bolger, Helen Morgan, Ethel Merman, ...

", but it was her performance before King George VI and Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the queen consort of King George VI from 1936 until her husband's death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...

 at the 1939 New York World's Fair

1939 New York World's Fair

The 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...

 during their respective royal visits in 1939 that she considered the highlight of her nascent career. She also toured Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 and Philadelphia in bands headed by Paul Whiteman

Paul Whiteman

Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...

 and Noro Morales

Noro Morales

Norosbaldo Morales was a Puerto Rican pianist and bandleader.-Biography:Morales learned several instruments as a child. He played in Venezuela from 1924 to 1930, then returned to Puerto Rico to play with Rafaél Muñoz. He emigrated to New York City in 1935, and played there with Alberto Socarras...

. Appearing in many New York venues, including The Roxy, Paramount, Loews State, Strand and Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...

, Rivera shared their stages with Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

, Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...

, Ann Miller

Ann Miller

Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...

, Dean Martin

Dean Martin

Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...

 and Jerry Lewis

Jerry Lewis

Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...

, Kathryn Grayson

Kathryn Grayson

Kathryn Grayson was an American actress and operatic soprano singer.From the age of twelve, Grayson trained as an opera singer. She was under contract to MGM by the early 1940s, soon establishing a career principally through her work in musicals...

, Victor Borge

Victor Borge

Victor Borge ,born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark,The Unmelancholy Dane,and The Great Dane.-Early life and career:...

, Ed Sullivan

Ed Sullivan

Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 , which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S...

, Merv Griffin

Merv Griffin

Mervyn Edward "Merv" Griffin, Jr. was an American television host, musician, actor, and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show on Group W Broadcasting...

 and Betty Hutton

Betty Hutton

Betty Hutton was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.-Early life:Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg and his wife, the former Mabel Lum . While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for...

.

Rivera put together her own show and performed it at the Latin Quarter (nightclub)

Latin Quarter (nightclub)

Latin Quarter is a nightclub in New York City.The Club which originally opened in 1942 featured big name acts. In recent years it has been a focus of hip hop, reggaeton, and salsa music....

 and Havana-Madrid in New York. She was also a marquee name back in her homeland where she entertained at venues such as Zero's Nightclub and El San Juan Theatre. In the mid 1940s Rivera was signed by Azteca Studios in Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

. She acted for director Fernando Soler

Fernando Soler

Fernando Soler was a prolific Mexican film actor and film director.He appeared in over 100 films between 1915 and his death in 1979.- External links :...

 in both the film drama Me perigue una mujer (1947) with Jose Torvay and David Silva, and the comedy El Conquistador (1947), also starring Torvay and Enrique Herrera.

After her contract ended at Azteca, Rivera went on to sign a Hollywood contract with a Paramount Pictures, and made her American movie debut as lead singer and specialty performer in the Hope-Crosby-Lamour comedy The Road to Rio (1947). Rivera was selected (in a popularity poll by Mexican filmgoers themselves) to star in a Hollywood film biography of the late Mexican spitfire Lupe Vélez

Lupe Vélez

Lupe Vélez was a Mexican film actress. Vélez began her career in Mexico as a dancer, before moving to the U.S. where she worked in vaudeville. She was seen by Fanny Brice who promoted her, and Vélez soon entered films, making her first appearance in 1924. By the end of the decade she had...

. The film was shelved when legal issues involving Ms.Vélez's estate arose. She continued to work in "hot spots" such as the famous Ciro's nightclub with Desi Arnaz's band.

In 1948, Marquita Rivera was honored with the Key to the City of San Juan by Mayoress Felisa de Rincon, for her achievements on Broadway, Mexico, and in Hollywood. Today she is being honored with a huge event in Puerto Rico ...November 29, 30 and Dec 1. Marquita Rivera will be given some special honors: a proclamation given by the Senators and House of representatives of Puerto Rico and then a separate Award by all the Mayors of Puerto Rico to commemorate her achievements as one of the first Latin/American actresses. This was all made possible by Eugene Biscardi,a widely known photographer and one of The Latin Queen's sons.

Retirement and later years

Rivera was married to business tycoon Albert Vernon Ashbrook from 1946 to 1949 and had one child, Marquita, her namesake. In 1951, she married physician Eugene N. Biscardi Jr. in New York City. They eventually became a family of seven children. Of their children, eldest son Eugene Biscardi III is a one-time model-turned-fashion photographer who has appeared occasionally as an actor on film and TV, and daughter Jessica Biscardi is a former model/actress and former "Miss New York".

By the 1950s, Rivera had phased out her career in order to concentrate on raising her large family. In 1963, however, she made a special appearance at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 that featured an all-star lineup, including opera performers Thomas Hayward, Rina Telli, Dino Formichini and James Boxwill, led by Philharmonic conductor Warner S. Bass. She did not appear again publicly until 1977 when she returned to the stage in a limited engagement of her own off-Broadway revue, "The Marquita Rivera Show".

In the 1980s her husband, Dr. Biscardi, retired and the couple relocated to Los Angeles where Rivera would occasionally make TV appearances, including "Sanford" with Redd Foxx

Redd Foxx

John Elroy Sanford , better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was an American comedian and actor, best known for his starring role on the sitcom Sanford and Son.-Early life:...

. She also traveled frequently throughout the South on the beauty pageant circuit as a judge. Following the death of her husband in 1988, Rivera chose to retire completely from the limelight.

On October 21 in 2002, Rivera died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles, California after suffering a stroke. She is survived by her 7 children - daughters Marquita Press, Jessica Wolford and Lucrezia Silver, and sons Eugene Biscardi III, Louis Biscardi, Robert Biscardi and Joseph Biscardi, as well as 17 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild.

Filmography

• "Road to Rio" (1945) - Lead Singer and Dancer (uncredited)
• "El conquistador" (1949)
• "Me persigue una mujer" (1956)
• "Cuban Pete"
• "Sanford" (TV series) (1971) - as Cal's Mom … Woman #1

See also

• List of famous Puerto Ricans