West Side Story cast: What happened to the main stars?

7 November 2025, 14:06 | Updated: 3 December 2025, 14:48

West Side Story is one of THE all time great musicals, but what happened to the cast after the film?

With hits like Wicked, Hamilton, Tick, Tick... Boom! and all those Disney remakes, we're in a good time for movie musicals at the moment – but few will be able to match the classics of years gone by.

The Golden Age of musicals is usually pegged at the 1940s and '50s, but the 1961 adaptation of West Side Story absolutely stands up today.

• Rita Moreno looks back on her fling with Elvis Presley
• Listen to the Music From The Movies Playlist on Global Player, the official Gold app

Based on the 1957 Broadway musical (itself more loosely based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet), it's unarguably one of the greats of the form.

That's in part due to its timeless story (thanks Will), as well as the soaring music (Leonard Bernstein) and on-point lyrics (Stephen Sondheim), the tight screenplay from Ernest Lehman and sharp, dynamic direction from Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins.

But it's also thanks to its wonderful cast: all those Jets and Sharks and the grownups they tussled with. Below we take a look at the main players and what they did next.

Natalie Wood as Maria

Before West Side Story, Natalie Wood was already a star.

As a young actor she got an Academy Awards Best Supporting Actress nod for Rebel Without a Cause, and then starred in John Ford's The Searchers

But after the flop All the Fine Young Cannibals, it was West Side Story – where she played Bernardo's younger sister and Chino's arranged fiancée who falls in love with Tony – that took her to the next level.

After her leading role in the hit musical, there were more Oscar nominations, this time for Best Actress in Splendor in the Grass and Love with the Proper Stranger, followed by other '60s smashes like Sex and the Single Girl, The Great Race, Inside Daisy Clover, This Property Is Condemned and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

In the 1970s, Wood's acting career took a back seat to her family life as she raised her children.

In fact, she only appeared in a handful of feature films, appearing in Peeper, Meteor, The Last Married Couple in America and (released posthumously) Brainstorm, as well as popping up as herself in The Candidate and Willie & Phil.

There was also a smattering of well-regarded TV roles, including The Affair, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and a miniseries version of From Here to Eternity.

Wood married Robert Wagner twice, sandwiching a marriage to Richard Gregson. She also had high profile relationships with Warren Beatty, Michael Caine and David Niven Jr.

She had two children, and Natasha Gregson Wagner followed her into acting.

Wood died tragically in 1981 aged just 43. She drowned in the Pacific Ocean at Santa Catalina Island in somewhat mysterious circumstances.

It's also worth mentioning Marni Nixon, the acclaimed "ghost singer" who provided Maria's singing voice in the film. Her other ghost singing roles included major hits like The King and I, An Affair to Remember and My Fair Lady.

Richard Beymer as Tony

Before West Side Story, Richard Beymer was maybe best known for playing Peter van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank.

In the film he played Tony, co-founder and ex-member of the Jets who worked at Doc's store and falls in love with Maria.

He was a hotly tipped young star, but seemed to struggle with how he felt about his craft. There were roles in films like Bachelor Flat, Hemingway's Adventure's of a Young Man and The Longest Day, but after The Stripper in 1963 he went into semi-retirement and stepped back from the industry.

Beymer popped up occasionally on the telly in stuff like Dr. Kildare and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and returned to the movies in 1973's The Innerview, which he also wrote, produced and directed.

He returned to LA in the 1980s but was introduced to a new audience as Ben Horne in David Lynch and Mark Frost's acclaimed Twin Peaks in 1990.

A smattering of movie and TV roles has followed, from My Girl 2 to The X-Files as well as a return to Twin Peaks, while he was also snapped on the set of Steven Spielberg's 2021 remake of West Side Story.

Much of his work these days comes behind the camera as a director of documentaries like Whatever Happened to Richard Beymer? and Behind the Red Curtain.

A shoutout out to Jimmy Bryant (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Bye Bye Birdie), who was Tony's ghost singer on West Side Story.

Russ Tamblyn as Riff

A trained gymnast, Russ Tamblyn was a child actor who popped up in Samson and Delilah (as Saul) in 1949 and had some decent musical experience having appeared in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers back in 1954.

He transitioned to adult roles and after a Best Supporting Actor nod for Peyton Place in 1957 he won the role of Riff, Tony's best friend and leader of the Jets, in West Side Story.

Meanwhile, he even worked as an uncredited choreographer for Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock.

A smattering of major movie roles followed in The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, and How the West Was Won and The Haunting, before Russ transitioned to indie movies and TV.

There were parts in work as diverse as Satan's Sadists and Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie, before – like Richard Beymer – a major role in Twin Peaks, playing Laura Palmer's eccentric psychiatrist Dr Lawrence Jacoby.

He has continued to appear as a character actor in a wide range of TV and movies ove the years, with roles in 2011's Drive and 2012's Django Unchained definitely worthy of mention.

In his personal life, Tamblyn has been married to Venetia Stevenson, Elizabeth Kempton and Bonnie Murray. His and Bonnie's daughter Amber Tamblyn s a major star in her own right.

It was Tucker Smith, who played Ice in the movie and had understudied as Riff on stage, how provided the character's singing voice in 'Jet Song'.

Rita Moreno as Anita

What can we say about Rita Moreno. She's an EGOT with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Kennedy Center Honor (and plenty more baubles than we can begin to mention).

She had parts in Singin' in the Rain and The King and I before breaking through in West Side Story as Anita ,Maria's close friend and Bernardo's girlfriend, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in the process.

Moreno has stayed at the top of the acting game for decade after decade. On the big screen there were roles in Popi, Carnal Knowledge, The Four Seasons, I Like It Like That and Fast X, as well as playing Valentina in Spielberg's West Side Story remake.

On telly there were roles in The Electric Company, Oz, The Muppet Show, The Rockford Files, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? and Jane the Virgin.

And on stage there were acclaimed performances in The Ritz, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window and The Odd Couple.

In her personal life, she had an on-off eight year relationship with Marlon Brando which ended badly, but they later rekindled their friendship. She married Leonard Gordon in 1965 and they stayed together until he died in 2010.

On West Side Story, her ghost singers were Betty Wand (Gigi) on 'A Boy Like That' and Marni Nixon on 'Tonight Quintet'.

George Chakiris as Bernardo

George Chakiris first appeared in the movies in 1947's Song of Love when he was just 15. He became the go-to guy as a dancer/chorus line body in movies like The Great Caruso, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and White Christmas.

After playing Riff on the West End run, in the movie West Side Story he played Bernado, Maria's older brother, Anita's boyfriend, and the leader of the Sharks, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.

Chakiris has a short-lived pop career, with two charting albums and a single produced by Joe Meek, but that side career faded while he continued to work on screen.

Movie roles in The Day the Hot Line Got Hot and The Big Cube were followed by a couple of decades of mainly small screen roles, popping up on any USTV show you could mention from Dallas to Hawaii Five-O to Murder, She Wrote.

He also had stage roles in Company and The King and I before his retirement.

Simon Oakland as Lieutenant Schrank

Simon Oakland was maybe best known for his TV work (Perry Mason, Dundee and the Culhane, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Rockford Files and Hawaii Five-O ) but also played Dr. Richman in Alfred Hitchcock's masterful Psycho.

After West Side Story, where he played police detective Lieutenant Schrank, he popped up in movies like The Sand Pebbles, Bullitt, The Hunting Party and Chato's Land.

He continued to act, mainly on TV, till his last role in Tucker's Witch.

In his personal life, he married Lois Lorraine Porta and had one child. He died in August 1983, aged 68.

Ned Glass as Doc

A proper character actor, you will have seen Ned Glass on the big and small screen countless times over the years, often in small but memorable uncredited roles.

He started off on Broadway and vaudeville and racked up the roles, with Doc in West Side Story, Tony's boss and drugstore owner, one of his most high profile appearances, alongside Gideon in Charade a couple of years later.

And he kept on keeping on.

You name it, he was in it: The Monkees, Hogan's Heroes, I Dream of Jeannie, The Love Bug... his last appearance was as a pickpocket on Cagney & Lacey in 1982.

He died in 1984 at the age of 78.

William Bramley as Sergeant Krupke

William Bramley was the only major player from the original Broadway production of West Side Story who kept his spot for the movie adaptation, where he reprised his role as bobby on the beat Sergeant Krupke.

Like much of the West Side Story cast he had a decent sprinkling of small movie roles after the film (The Thrill of it All, Madigan, Doctor's Wives, The Wild Life) but was better known for around 150 TV roles from Pond's Theatre and The Phil Silvers Show in the 1950s, through parts in Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Laramie, The Outer Limits, The Fugitive, Bewitched, Star Trek and so on.

His last roles came in an episode of medical drama St. Elsewhere in 1983 and in movie The Wild Life a year later.

Bramley died in 1985, aged just 57.