Maria (West Side Story) after he meets and kisses Maria for the first time. Her name is sung 29 times in total. Natalie Wood was not the first choice to play Maria in the 1961 film version. Audrey Hepburn was considered, but she did not take it due to her pregnancy. Like Wood, Hepburn was not Puerto Rican; she was British, Dutch, and Austrian. Oh Maria, Maria / She remind me of a West Side story. Maria (West Side Story) Maria is the leading female character in the film "West Side Story". Maria is in her late teens when she arrives on the US
Gypsy (1962 film) Story" is, though, it is equaled and, arguably, surpassed - in a rather different idiom - by another filmed Broadway hit: Mervyn LeRoy’s "Gypsy". Arthur Laurents' book (for) "West Side Story" (adapted for the screen by Ernest Lehman), though largely craftsmanlike, falls short of his libretto for "Gypsy" (scripted on celluloid by Leonard Spigelgass), based on the memoirs of the transatlantic stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. The dialogue and situations in "Gypsy" have more wit, bite and emotional range, and the characterizations are more complex. "Variety" noted, "There is a wonderfully funny sequence involving three nails-hard strippers which comes when "Gypsy"