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Sonia Manzano — known to multiple generations as Maria on “Sesame Street” — confesses that there was flirtatious chemistry between her character and Oscar the Grouch.
“That’s absolutely true,” she said with a laugh during an exclusive interview with Page Six. “I really love Oscar. He was my favorite Muppet character.
“I always kid around, saying, ‘I left the show because 44 years was long enough for me to wait for him to propose.”
Manzano, 75, explained that she loved Oscar because of his sense of humor, as portrayed by late Muppeteer Caroll Spinney.
“He would just say things, ‘If you don’t want to be a murderer, don’t be around people who shouldn’t be killed,'” she said, still laughing. “‘I know my mother used to rock me to sleep, she used real rocks.’
“You know, those kinds of quips were endearing to me. I loved it.”
Manzano is the subject of a documentary, “Street Smart: Lessons from a TV Icon,” viewable online through the end of November as part of Doc NYC’s Metropolitan Competition.
The Bronx native joined the legendary PBS kids series in 1971, two years after it debuted, and eventually began writing scripts for the series.
Manzano said Jim Henson — the legendary puppeteer who created such characters as Oscar, Big Bird and Cookie Monster and voiced Ernie from 1969 to 1990 — was not an easy person to know.
“He was a very enigmatic person,” she explained. “You never knew what he was thinking. I can’t say that I knew him well. He didn’t open up and we weren’t on the set at the same time.”
One thing she said she did learn from the creative genius who, died suddenly in 1990 at 53, is how to treat people.
“He never criticized the performers,” she said. “He always said, ‘I think we can do that better.’ And kind of putting himself in that group that was going to do things better.”
The Emmy winner recalled how she shaped Maria by drawing on her own childhood experiences in the South Bronx and acknowledges her character’s importance for young Latino viewers.
“Not seeing people who looked like you reflected in society certainly made you feel invisible,” she said.
Manzano knew it was time to leave the show, which now plays on both PBS and Netflix, when she was on a panel with other performers — and realized that she was the only one there who had personally known Henson, and also began not recognizing the show’s celeb guests.
Since leaving the show, Manzano has written children’s books and is the creator of the cartoon series “Alma’s Way,” set in The Bronx and revolving around a 6-year-old Puerto Rican girl.
English (US)