LI's Rita Moreno dated Elvis to make Marlon Brando jealous

Stage and screen legend Rita Moreno, who spent her teen years in Valley Stream just before signing her springboard contract with MGM, recalls that in order to make her cheating boyfriend Marlon Brando jealous, she dated Elvis Presley.

"I found lingerie in his house and of course I was heartbroken and I went home in tears," said the Emmy-, Grammy-, Oscar- and Tony Award-winning star of the original and the newly remade "West Side Story" films, speaking Wednesday on "The View." As she previously revealed in her 2013 memoir, Moreno and iconic actor Brando had a volatile eight-year affair from 1953 to 1961, both when he was single and during his first two marriages.

"I was angry, too, just furious," Moreno, who turns 90 on Dec. 11, continued. "And the next day the phone rings and I say 'Hello,' and I hear a voice say, 'Miss Moreno?' And I said, 'Uh, yeah?' 'This is [famed music manager] Colonel [Tom] Parker. My client is Elvis Presley, and Elvis spotted you at the 20th Century Fox … commissary and he liked what he saw.' I said 'Oh?' and he said, 'And he would like very much to meet you. Would you like to meet him?' And I thought of those panties and I said, 'Yes, I would!' "

She dated the seminal rock and roll star "several times. He was sweet but boring," Moreno said, reiterating her description in her autobiography. "He was sweet, but he was a country boy. I mean," she said, by way of comparison, "this is Marlon Brando! … So anyway, when [Brando] found out — and it didn't take long, interestingly, [even] without social media — he started to throw chairs. He was so angry. Yeah," she added slyly, "it was wonderful. And I just sat there as he threw chairs and he yelled and carried on and I thought … ," she said, mimicking a nonchalant look at her fingernails.

As her memoir had recounted, the affair with Brando included an abortion and a 1961 suicide attempt at his home, with sleeping pills, shortly after production on "West Side Story" ended. The actor's assistant found her and had her rushed to a hospital, where her stomach was pumped.