The Ritz written by Terrence McNally and performed on Broadway in 1975 earned Rita Moreno a Tony Award for her portrayal of Googie Gomez, a third-rate Puerto Rican entertainer with visions of Broadway glory and rave reviews.
The following year the play was turned into a movie with Moreno reprising her role as Googey for which she received a Golden Globe nominations in the comedy category.
The movie today even as dated as it is , is a hilarious comedy set in a gay bathhouse in Manhattan (a comedic take on NYC’s Continental Baths), where unsuspecting heterosexual Cleveland businessman Gaetano Proclo (Jack Weston) has taken refuge from his homicidal mobster brother-in-law, Carmine Vespucci (Jerry Stiller). There Gaetano stumbles across an assortment of oddball characters, including a rabid chubby chaser, go-go boys, a squeaky-voiced detective (Treat Williams), and Googie Gomez, who mistakes him for a famous producer and whom he mistakes for a man in drag. To make matters worse Gaetano’s wife Vivian tracks him down and jumps to all the wrong conclusions about his sexual preferences.
If you ever get a chance to see it DO.
In the clip below Googie Gomez (Rita Moreno) sings “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” for the boys at The Ritz followed by the movies theatrical trailer.
Terrence McNally was a regular at the Club Baths not the Continental Baths and wanted to write a play about the Baths. He based it on the Club Baths and the Continental so he could use The live entertainment angle which the Club Baths never had. When I saw the play and The movie it bothered me that at the end it turned out that the Baths were mob owned, because I owned the Club Baths and I was not Mob, I was a gay guy, none of the Baths in New York City were owned by the mob. Terrence was a very talented and funny man, and a very good friend of our manager Bob. The Ritz turned out to be a fun play and movie.