Rita Hayworth
Encyclopedia
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars. She appeared in 61 films over 37 years and is listed as one of the American Film Institute
's Greatest Stars of All Time
.
, New York
as Margarita Carmen Cansino, the daughter of Spanish dancer Eduardo Cansino, Sr. and Volga Hayworth
, a dancer of Irish and English descent, who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies
.Notable American women: a biographical dictionary, Volume 5, Susan Ware, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University Press, p281 2004 ISBN 9780674014886 The Catholic couple married in 1917 and had two boys after Margarita, Eduardo, Jr. and Vernon.
Rita's father wanted her to become a professional dancer while her mother hoped she would become an actress. Her grandfather, Antonio Cansino, was the most renowned exponent in his day of Spain's classical dances; he popularised the bolero
. His dancing school in Madrid was world famous. Rita recalled, "From the time I was three and a half,... as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons.""I didn't like it very much,... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood." She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall
complex under the instruction of her uncle, Angel Cansino, performing publicly from the age of six. In 1926, she featured in La Fiesta, a short film for Warner Bros.
.
In 1927, when Hayworth was eight years old, her father moved the family west to Hollywood, convinced there was a great future for dancing in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio and Hollywood luminaries, including James Cagney
and Jean Harlow
received specialized training from him. During the Great Depression the family's investments were wiped out. Musicals were no longer in vogue and commercial interest in her father's dancing classes waned. Hayworth partnered with her father to form "The Dancing Cansinos". Since Hayworth was not of legal age to work in nightclubs and bars according to California state law, she and her father traveled across the border to the city of Tijuana
in Mexico
, a popular tourist spot for Los Angeles citizens in the early 1930s. Due to her work schedule, Hayworth did not finish high school but completed ninth grade at Hamilton High, in Los Angeles. She took a bit part in the films Cruz Diablo
(1934) which led to another in In Caliente
(1935) with Mexican actress Dolores del Río
. Hayworth danced in such nightspots as the Foreign Club and the Caliente Club and was at the Caliente Club where she was seen by the head of the Fox Film Corporation, Winfield Sheehan
. A week later, Hayworth did a screen test for Fox. Impressed by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract, under the name of Rita Cansino.
, with Darryl F. Zanuck
serving as the executive producer. Dismissing Sheehan's interest in Hayworth, Zanuck did not renew her contract. Feeling that Hayworth still had screen potential, despite just being dropped by Fox, salesman and promoter Edward C. Judson, whom she would marry in 1936, got her the lead roles in several independent films and arranged a screen test with Columbia Pictures
. Studio head Harry Cohn
signed her to a long-term contract, casting Hayworth in small roles in Columbia features.
Often cast as the exotic foreigner, Hayworth appeared in small roles in 1935: in Dante's Inferno, with Spencer Tracy
and Paddy O'Day playing a Russian dancer. She was an Argentinian in Under the Pampas Moon and an Egyptian beauty in Charlie Chan in Egypt
and in 1936 took her first starring role as a 'Latin type' in Human Cargo.
Cohn argued that Hayworth's image was too much of a Mediterranean style, bringing stereotypically 'exotic' roles. Under the tutelage of Cohn and Judson, she began to undergo electrolysis to broaden the appearance of her forehead and raise her hairline. She transformed into a redhead and changed her name to Rita Hayworth, using her mother's maiden name, so leaving behind the exotic image and becoming a reflection of the classic American pinup.
In 1937, she appeared in five minor Columbia pictures and three minor independent movies. The following year, Hayworth appeared in five more Columbia B films
. In 1939, Cohn pressured director Howard Hawks
to use Hayworth for a small but important role as a man-trap in the aviation drama Only Angels Have Wings
, in which she played opposite Cary Grant
and Jean Arthur
. A box-office success, fan mail for Hayworth began pouring into Columbia's publicity department and Cohn began to see Hayworth as his first and official new star. The studio never officially had stars under contract, except for Jean Arthur, who was trying to break with Columbia. Cohn began to build Hayworth up the following year, in features such as Music in My Heart, The Lady in Question, and Angels Over Broadway
. He loaned Hayworth out to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
to appear in Susan and God
, opposite Joan Crawford
.
On loan to Warner Brothers, Hayworth appeared as the second female lead in The Strawberry Blonde
(1941), opposite James Cagney
and Olivia de Havilland
. A big box-office success, Hayworth's popularity rose and she immediately became one of Hollywood's hottest properties. So impressed was Warner Brothers that they tried to buy Hayworth's contract from Columbia, but Harry Cohn refused to release her. Her success led to a supporting role in Blood and Sand
(1941), opposite Tyrone Power
and Linda Darnell
, with Fox, the studio that had dropped her six years before. In one of her most notable screen roles, Hayworth played Doña Sol des Muire, the first of many screen sirens. This was another box-office hit. She returned in triumph to Columbia Pictures and was cast in the musical You'll Never Get Rich
(1941), opposite Fred Astaire
in one of the highest-budgeted films Columbia had ever made. So successful was the picture that the following year, another Astaire-Hayworth picture was released You Were Never Lovelier
. In 1942, Hayworth also appeared in two other pictures, Tales of Manhattan
and My Gal Sal
.
It was during this period that Hayworth posed for a famous pin-up in Life Magazine, which showed her in a negligee perched seductively on her bed. When the U.S. joined World War II in December 1941, Hayworth's image made her one of the top two pin-up girls of the war years, the other being blonde Betty Grable
. In 2002, the satin nightgown she wore for the picture sold for $26,888. Hayworth was called the "Love Goddess" (One biopic and one biography used the moniker in reference to her). "Everybody else does nude scenes," Hayworth said, "but I don't. I never made nude movies. I didn't have to do that. I danced. I was provocative, I guess, in some things. But I was not completely exposed."
For three consecutive years, starting in 1944, Rita Hayworth was named one of the top movie box office attractions in the world. In 1944, she made one of her best-known films, the Technicolor musical Cover Girl (1944), with Gene Kelly
. The film established her as Columbia's top star of the 1940s. Hayworth was adept in ballet, tap, ballroom, and Spanish routines. Cohn continued to effectively showcase Hayworth's talents in Technicolor films: Tonight and Every Night
(1945), with Lee Bowman
, and Down to Earth
(1947), with Larry Parks
.
Her erotic appeal was most noted in Charles Vidor
's black and white film noir
Gilda
(1946), with Glenn Ford
, which encountered difficulty with censors. The role, in which Hayworth in black satin performed a legendary one-glove striptease, turned her made her into a cultural icon as a femme fatale . Alluding to her bombshell status, in 1946, it was reported that her likeness was placed on the first nuclear bomb to be tested after World War II (at Bikini Atoll
in the Pacific Ocean's Marshall Islands
) as part of Operation Crossroads
. However, recent research suggests all that was on the bomb was the word "GILDA". Hayworth performed one of her best-remembered dance routines, the samba
from Tonight and Every Night (1945), while pregnant with her first child, Rebecca Welles (daughter with Orson Welles
). Hayworth was the first dancer to partner with both Fred Astaire
and Gene Kelly
on film.
She delivered one of her most acclaimed performances in Welles's The Lady from Shanghai
(1947). Its failure at the box office was attributed in part to director/co-star Welles having had Hayworth's famous red locks cut off and the remainder of her hair dyed blonde for her role. This was done without Cohn's knowledge or approval and he was furious over the change. Her next film, The Loves of Carmen
(1948), again with Glenn Ford, was the first film co-produced by Columbia and Hayworth's own production company, The Beckworth Corporation (named for her daughter Rebecca); it was Columbia's biggest moneymaker for that year. She received a percentage of the profits from this and all her subsequent films until 1955 when she dissolved Beckworth to pay off debts she owed to Columbia.
. In 1945, Hayworth received notice of her suspension by her employers, Columbia Pictures, "on the day she entered the maternity hospital in Hollywood."
In 1947, Rita Hayworth's new contract with Columbia provided a salary of US$250,000 plus 50% of film profits. In 1951 Columbia alleged it had $800,000 invested in properties for her, including the film she walked out on when she left Hollywood and married Aly Khan, having divorced Judson in 1942. She was suspended again for failing to report for work, this time for Affair in Trinidad
. In 1952 she refused to report for work because "she objected to the script." In 1955, she sued to get out of a contract with the studio, asking for her $150,000 salary, alleging filming failed to start work when agreed. She said "I was in Switzerland when they sent me the script for Affair in Trinidad and I threw it across the room. But I did the picture, and Pal Joey
too. I came back to Columbia because I wanted to work and first, see, I had to finish that goddamn contract, which is how Harry Cohn
owned me!" "Harry Cohn thought of me as one of the people he could exploit," said Hayworth, "and make a lot of money. And I did make a lot of money for him, but not much for me."
Hayworth was still upset with Columbia and its head Harry Cohn many years after her film career had ended and he was dead. "I used to have to punch a time clock at Columbia," noted Hayworth. "Every day of my life. That's what it was like. I was under exclusive contract, like they owned me, ... I think he had my dressing room bugged... He was very possessive of me as a person, he didn't want me to go out with anybody, have any friends. No one can live that way. So I fought him... You want to know what I think of Harry Cohn? He was a monster."
Another source of "gnawing resentment" for Hayworth was her studio's failure to train her to sing or even encourage her to learn how to sing. Although she appeared to sing in many of her films, it was almost always dubbed. The public didn't know this closely guarded secret, and she ended up embarrassed because at USO shows she was constantly asked by the troops to sing. "I wanted to study singing," Hayworth complained, "but Harry Cohn kept saying, 'Who needs it?' and the studio wouldn't pay for it. They had me so intimidated that I couldn't have done it anyway. They always said, 'Oh, no, we can't let you do it. There's no time for that; it has to be done right now!' I was under contract, and that was it."
Although Cohn had a reputation as a hard taskmaster, he also had legitimate criticisms of Hayworth. He had invested heavily in her before she began a reckless affair with the married Aly Khan, even though it could have caused a backlash against her career and Columbia's success. A British newspaper called for a boycott of Hayworth's films. "Hollywood must be told", said The People
, "its already tarnished reputation will sink to rock bottom if it restores this reckless woman to a place among its stars." Cohn himself expressed his frustration with Hayworth's relationships in an interview with Time
magazine. "Hayworth might be worth ten million dollars today easily! She owned 25% of the profits with her own company and had hit after hit and she had to get married and had to get out of the business and took a suspension because she fell in love again! In five years, at two pictures a year, at 25%! Think of what she could have made! But she didn't make pictures! She took two or three suspensions! She got mixed up with different characters! Unpredictable!"
(1952) with favorite co-star Glenn Ford
, Salome
(1953) with Charles Laughton
and Stewart Granger
, and Miss Sadie Thompson
(1953) with José Ferrer
and Aldo Ray
, for which her performance won critical acclaim. Then she was off the big screen for another four years, due mainly to a tumultuous marriage to singer Dick Haymes
. After making Fire Down Below
(1957) with Robert Mitchum
and Jack Lemmon
, and her last musical Pal Joey
(1957) with Frank Sinatra
and Kim Novak
, Hayworth finally left Columbia. She received good reviews for her acting in such films as Separate Tables
(1958) with Burt Lancaster
and David Niven
, and The Story on Page One
(1960) with Anthony Franciosa
, and continued working throughout the 1960s. In 1962, her planned Broadway debut in Step on a Crack was cancelled for undisclosed health reasons.
She continued to act in films until the early 1970s and made a well-publicized 1971 television appearance on The Carol Burnett Show
. Her last film was The Wrath of God
(1972).
) and 120 lb (55 kgs
) she was tall enough for her height to be a concern to dancing partners like Fred Astaire
. Hayworth got her big motion picture break because she was willing to change her hair color whereas another actress was unwilling. She reportedly changed her hair color eight times in eight movies.
In 1949 Hayworth's lips were voted best in the world by the Artists League of America. She had a modeling contract with Max Factor
to promote its Tru-Color lipsticks and Pan-Stik make-up.
Barbara Leaming writes in her biography of Hayworth If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth (1989), that due to her fondness for alcohol and stressful lifestyle, Hayworth aged before her time. Re-appearing in New York
to begin work on her first film in three years in 1956 "despite the artfully applied make-up and shoulder-length red hair, there was no concealing the ravages of drink and stress. Deep lines had crept around her eyes and mouth, and she appeared worn, exhausted, older than her thirty-eight years." Leaming goes on to report that on the filming of Fire Down Below
she overheard a remark apparently unintended for her ears that she should hurry up as 'no amount of time was going to make her look any younger.' Additionally, while in San Francisco the following year filming Pal Joey
she was signing autographs when one fan blurted out 'She looks so old. In the first case Hayworth is reported to have cried and in the second, although she blanked it at the time, it was clear that her premature aging was a sensitive subject to her. It was also one which meant she had to be carefully lit in films for the rest of her career.
. "I guess the only jewels of my life," Hayworth said, "were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire."
Hayworth's two younger brothers, Vernon Cansino and Eduardo Cansino, Jr., both served in World War II
. Vernon left the U.S. Army in 1946 with several medals, including the Purple Heart
, and later married Susan Vail, a dancer.
Eduardo Cansino, Jr. followed Hayworth into acting; he was also under contract with Columbia Pictures. In 1950 he made his screen debut in Magic Carpet.
Edward Charles Judson (1937–1942): Hayworth was 18 in 1937, she married Edward Judson, a domineering man more than twice her age. They eloped in Las Vegas. He was an oilman turned promoter who had played a major role in launching her acting career. He was a shrewd businessman and became her manager for months before he proposed. "He helped me with my career," Hayworth conceded after they divorced, "and helped himself to my money." She alleged Judson compelled her to transfer considerable property to him and promise to pay him $12,000 under threats that he would do her "great bodily harm." She filed for divorce from him on February 24, 1942 with the complaint of cruelty. She also noted to the press that his work took him to Oklahoma and Texas while she lived and worked in Hollywood. Judson was as old as her father, who was enraged by the marriage, which caused a rift between Hayworth and her parents until the divorce. Judson neglected to inform Hayworth before they married that he had previously been married twice. When she finally walked out on him, she literally had no money. She asked her friend, Hermes Pan
, if she could eat at his home, because she didn't have any money to buy food.
Orson Welles (1943–1948): Hayworth married Orson Welles
on September 7, 1943. None of her colleagues even knew about the planned marriage (before a judge) until she announced it the day before they got married. For the civil ceremony she wore a beige suit, ruffled white blouse, and a veil. A few hours after they got married, they returned to work at the studio. They had a daughter, Rebecca Welles (1944–2004). After marital struggles, and a final attempt at reconciliation, Hayworth said he told her he didn't want to be tied down by marriage.
"During the entire period of our marriage", she declared, "he showed no interest in establishing a home. When I suggested purchasing a home, he told me he didn't want the responsibility. Mr. Welles told me he never should have married in the first place; that it interfered with his freedom in his way of life."
Prince Aly Khan (1949–1953): In 1948 she left her film career to marry Prince Aly Khan
, a son of Sultan Mahommed Shah, Aga Khan III
, the leader of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam. They were married on May 27, 1949. Her bridal trousseau was Dior
's New Look.
Aly Khan and his family were heavily involved in horse racing, so although Hayworth did not like horses or thoroughbred horse racing
, she became a member of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club
. Hayworth's filly Double Rose won several races in France
and notably finished second in the 1949 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe
.
In 1951, while still married to Hayworth, Khan was spotted dancing with Joan Fontaine
in the nightclub where he and his wife met. Hayworth responded by issuing an ultimatum and threatening to divorce him in Reno, Nevada
. In early May she moved to Nevada to establish legal residence to qualify for a divorce. She holed up in Lake Tahoe
with her daughter despite a threat to kidnap her child. When she filed for divorce from Khan on September 2, 1951, she did so on the grounds of "extreme cruelty, entirely mental in nature."
Hayworth once said she might convert to Islam like her husband. During the custody fight over their daughter Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, Prince Khan said he wanted her raised as a Muslim; whereas Hayworth (who had been raised a Roman Catholic) wanted the child to be a Christian.
In fact, Hayworth had rejected a $1,000,000 offer to raise Yasmin as a Muslim from age seven and allow her to go to Europe for two or three months each year.
Dick Haymes (1953–1955): When Hayworth and Haymes
first met, he was still married and his singing career was waning, but when the Love Goddess showed up at the clubs, he got a larger audience. Haymes was desperate for money as two of his former wives were taking legal action against him for unpaid child support. His financial problems were so bad he could not even return to California without being arrested. On July 7, 1954, his ex-wife Nora Haymes
got a bench warrant for his arrest, because he owed her $3,800 in alimony. Less than a week prior, his other ex-wife, Joanne Dru
, also got a bench warrant because she said he owed $4,800 in support payments for their three children. It was Hayworth who ended up paying most of Haymes's debts.
Haymes was born in Argentina, and didn't have solid proof of American citizenship. The authorities initiated proceedings to have him deported back to Argentina for being an illegal alien not long after he met Hayworth. He hoped Hayworth could influence the government and keep him in the United States. When she assumed responsibility for his citizenship, a bond was formed that led to marriage. The two were married on September 24, 1953 at the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas
, their wedding procession marching through the casino itself.
From the start, their marriage Haymes deeply indebted to the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS). When Hayworth took time off from attending his comeback performances in Philadelphia, crowd numbers plummeted and when Haymes's $5000 weekly salary was attached by the IRS to pay a $100,000 bill, he was unable to even pay his pianist. Haymes' ex-wives demanded money while Hayworth publicly bemoaned her own lack of alimony from Aly Khan. At one point, the couple was effectively imprisoned in a hotel room for 24 hours in Manhattan
at the Hotel Madison as sheriff's deputies waited outside threatening to arrest Haymes for outstanding debts. All of this happened against a backdrop of death threats to Hayworth's children and an ongoing custody battle she was fighting with Khan. During the time she was living in a hotel in New York, Hayworth sent the children to live with their nanny in Westchester County
. There they were found and photographed by a reporter from Confidential
magazine. That the photographer had been able to access them easily at the time of death-threats to them was one thing, but the article also depicted them "in a trash littered backyard, playing among an assortment of loaded ash cans". After a tumultuous two years together Haymes struck her in the face in 1955 in public at the Coconut Grove night club in Los Angeles. Hayworth packed her bags, walked out, and never returned. The extreme event leading to Hayworth's separation shook her and her doctor ordered her to remain in bed for several days.
Hayworth also found herself very short of money after her marriage to Haymes and having pursued Aly Khan for child support money throughout her marriage to Haymes, she now sued Orson Welles
for back payment of child support she claimed had never been paid. As well as being ultimately unsuccessful, this only added to her stressed condition and on the set of Fire Down Below
she was seen tearing up her bundle of mail and scattering the scraps in the sea. On being told one of these letters may have contained money she remarked "more trouble than money".
James Hill (1958–1961): After Haymes, Hayworth began a relationship with film producer James Hill, whom she went on to marry. By his own account, Hill started with the best intentions but wound up "as anxious to use her as all the rest." On February 2, 1958, Hayworth married Hill, who put her in one of her last major films, Separate Tables
. On September 1, 1961, Hayworth filed for divorce from Hill, alleging extreme mental cruelty. He later wrote the book Rita Hayworth: A Memoir in which he suggested their marriage collapsed because he wanted Hayworth to continue making movies while she wanted both of them to retire from the Hollywood scene.
Charlton Heston
, in his book, In the Arena, sheds some light on Hayworth's brief marriage to Hill. Heston had never met her when he and his wife Lydia joined Hayworth and Hill for dinner in a restaurant in Spain with director George Marshall
and Rex Harrison
, Hayworth's co-star in The Happy Thieves
. Heston, who was in Spain making El Cid
, recalled in his memoir that "it turned into the single most embarrassing evening of my life", describing how Hill heaped "obscene abuse" on Hayworth until she was "reduced to a helpless flood of tears, her face buried in her hands". Heston writes how they all sat stunned, witnesses to a "marital massacre" and though he was "strongly tempted to slug him" (Hill), he instead simply took his wife Lydia home when she stood up, almost in tears herself. Heston ended by writing, "I'm ashamed of walking away from Miss Hayworth's humiliation. I never saw her again."
In 1972, Hayworth was 54 years old and wanted to retire from acting, but she was in need of money and reluctantly signed up for The Wrath of God
. The experience, however, exposed her poor health and worsening mental state. She could not remember lines, so they had to film her scenes one line at a time. Extreme memory loss left her very nervous and resistant to doing at least one scene, which was then done by a double.
Even so, the following year Hayworth agreed to do one more movie, Tales That Witness Madness
(1973). Her health was even worse by that time, so she abandoned the movie set, and returned to America. She never returned to acting.
In March 1974, both her brothers died within a week of each other, saddening her greatly, and causing her to drink even more heavily than before. In 1976 at London's Heathrow Airport, Hayworth was removed from a TWA flight during which she had an angry outburst while traveling with her agent. "Miss Hayworth had been drinking when she boarded the plane," revealed a TWA flight attendant, "and had several free drinks during the flight." The event attracted much negative publicity; a disturbing photograph was published in newspapers showing her looking very disheveled, sad, lost, ill, and barely recognizable.
Hayworth's alcoholism confused family, friends, colleagues — and even doctors — who were unable to immediately recognize Alzheimer's disease
. "For several years in the 1970s, she had been misdiagnosed as an alcoholic." "It was the outbursts," said her daughter, "She'd fly into a rage. I can't tell you. I thought it was alcoholism-alcoholic dementia. We all thought that. The papers picked that up, of course. You can't imagine the relief just in getting a diagnosis. We had a name at last, Alzheimer's! Of course, that didn't really come until the last seven or eight years. She wasn't diagnosed as having Alzheimer's until 1980. There were two decades of hell before that."
In July 1981, Hayworth's health had deteriorated to the point where a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that because she was suffering from senile dementia, and no longer able to care for herself, she should be placed under the care of her daughter, Princess Yasmin Khan of New York City. She then lived in an apartment at The San Remo
on Central Park West
next to her daughter, who looked after her during her final years until she died.
in her Manhattan apartment. A funeral service for Hayworth was held on May 19, 1987 at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills
. Pallbearers included actors Ricardo Montalbán
, Glenn Ford
, Don Ameche
and choreographer Hermes Pan
. She was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City
. Her headstone includes the inscription: "To yesterday's companionship and tomorrow's reunion."
"Rita Hayworth was one of our country's most beloved stars", said President Ronald Reagan
, who had been an actor at the same time as Hayworth and would himself fall victim to Alzheimer's. "Glamorous and talented, she gave us many wonderful moments on stage and screen and delighted audiences from the time she was a young girl. In her later years, Rita became known for her struggle with Alzheimer's disease
. Her courage and candor, and that of her family, were a great public service in bringing worldwide attention to a disease which we all hope will soon be cured. Nancy and I are saddened by Rita's death. She was a friend who we will miss. We extend our deep sympathy to her family."
.jpg)
Hayworth appeared with John Wayne
in Circus World
(1964) (U.K.
title: Magnificent Showman), for which she received a Golden Globe Award
nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
, her only notable-award nod.
In 1977, Hayworth was the recipient of the National Screen Heritage Award. Despite appearing in 61 films over 37 years, including leading roles in successful films like Gilda, she never received an Academy Award nomination. Hayworth is included as one of the American Film Institute
's Greatest Stars of All Time
.
is the annual Rita Hayworth Gala, held in New York City and Chicago, Illinois. Hayworth's daughter, Yasmin Aga Khan, has been the hostess for these events and a major sponsor of Alzheimer's Disease charities and awareness programs. Since 1985 they have raised more than US$
42 million for the Association. The film I Remember Better When I Paint
(2009) features a stirring interview with Hayworth's daughter describing how her mother took up painting while struggling with Alzheimer's and produced beautiful works of art.
Actress Lynda Carter
portrayed Hayworth in the television movie Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess. Actress Veronica Watt also portrayed her in the film Hollywoodland
(2006).
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
's Greatest Stars of All Time
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars
Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars is a list of the top 50 greatest screen legends of American cinema, 25 male and 25 female...
.
Early life
Hayworth was born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
as Margarita Carmen Cansino, the daughter of Spanish dancer Eduardo Cansino, Sr. and Volga Hayworth
Volga Hayworth
Volga Cansino, née Hayworth , was an American dancer and vaudevillian under the name Volga Hayworth. A popular showgirl on Broadway, she was the mother of actress Rita Hayworth, who took her professional name from her mother's maiden name.She was born in 1897 in Washington D.C., the daughter of and...
, a dancer of Irish and English descent, who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
.Notable American women: a biographical dictionary, Volume 5, Susan Ware, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University Press, p281 2004 ISBN 9780674014886 The Catholic couple married in 1917 and had two boys after Margarita, Eduardo, Jr. and Vernon.
Rita's father wanted her to become a professional dancer while her mother hoped she would become an actress. Her grandfather, Antonio Cansino, was the most renowned exponent in his day of Spain's classical dances; he popularised the bolero
Bolero
Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.The term is also used for some art music...
. His dancing school in Madrid was world famous. Rita recalled, "From the time I was three and a half,... as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons.""I didn't like it very much,... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood." She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
complex under the instruction of her uncle, Angel Cansino, performing publicly from the age of six. In 1926, she featured in La Fiesta, a short film for Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
.
In 1927, when Hayworth was eight years old, her father moved the family west to Hollywood, convinced there was a great future for dancing in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio and Hollywood luminaries, including James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
and Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
received specialized training from him. During the Great Depression the family's investments were wiped out. Musicals were no longer in vogue and commercial interest in her father's dancing classes waned. Hayworth partnered with her father to form "The Dancing Cansinos". Since Hayworth was not of legal age to work in nightclubs and bars according to California state law, she and her father traveled across the border to the city of Tijuana
Tijuana
Tijuana is the largest city on the Baja California Peninsula and center of the Tijuana metropolitan area, part of the international San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. An industrial and financial center of Mexico, Tijuana exerts a strong influence on economics, education, culture, art, and politics...
in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, a popular tourist spot for Los Angeles citizens in the early 1930s. Due to her work schedule, Hayworth did not finish high school but completed ninth grade at Hamilton High, in Los Angeles. She took a bit part in the films Cruz Diablo
Cruz Diablo
Cruz Diablo is a 1934 Mexican film. It was directed byFernando de Fuentes....
(1934) which led to another in In Caliente
In Caliente
In Caliente, also known as Viva Señorita, is a 1935 film written by Ralph Block, directed by Lloyd Bacon, and starred Dolores del Río.- Plot :...
(1935) with Mexican actress Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood...
. Hayworth danced in such nightspots as the Foreign Club and the Caliente Club and was at the Caliente Club where she was seen by the head of the Fox Film Corporation, Winfield Sheehan
Winfield Sheehan
Winfield Sheehan was a film company executive. He was responsible for much of Fox Film Corporation's output during the 1920s and 1930s. As studio head he won an Academy Award for Best Picture for the film Cavalcade and was nominated three more times.A native of Buffalo, New York, Sheehan served...
. A week later, Hayworth did a screen test for Fox. Impressed by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract, under the name of Rita Cansino.
Film career
During her time at Fox, Hayworth appeared in five pictures, in non-notable roles. By the end of her six-month contract Fox had merged into 20th Century Fox20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, with Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...
serving as the executive producer. Dismissing Sheehan's interest in Hayworth, Zanuck did not renew her contract. Feeling that Hayworth still had screen potential, despite just being dropped by Fox, salesman and promoter Edward C. Judson, whom she would marry in 1936, got her the lead roles in several independent films and arranged a screen test with Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. Studio head Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
signed her to a long-term contract, casting Hayworth in small roles in Columbia features.
Often cast as the exotic foreigner, Hayworth appeared in small roles in 1935: in Dante's Inferno, with Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
and Paddy O'Day playing a Russian dancer. She was an Argentinian in Under the Pampas Moon and an Egyptian beauty in Charlie Chan in Egypt
Charlie Chan in Egypt
Charlie Chan in Egypt is the eighth 20th Century Fox Charlie Chan film starring Warner Oland in the title role. It was released in 1935. -Plot:Charlie Chan is hired when an archaeologist disappears during the excavation of ancient art treasures in Egypt...
and in 1936 took her first starring role as a 'Latin type' in Human Cargo.
Cohn argued that Hayworth's image was too much of a Mediterranean style, bringing stereotypically 'exotic' roles. Under the tutelage of Cohn and Judson, she began to undergo electrolysis to broaden the appearance of her forehead and raise her hairline. She transformed into a redhead and changed her name to Rita Hayworth, using her mother's maiden name, so leaving behind the exotic image and becoming a reflection of the classic American pinup.
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
. In 1939, Cohn pressured director Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
to use Hayworth for a small but important role as a man-trap in the aviation drama Only Angels Have Wings
Only Angels Have Wings
Only Angels Have Wings is a movie directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. It is generally regarded as being among Hawks' finest films, particularly in its portrayal of the professionalism of the pilots, its atmosphere, and the flying sequences.It inspired the 1983 television...
, in which she played opposite Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
and Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur was an American actress and a major film star of the 1930s and 1940s. She remains arguably the epitome of the female screwball comedy actress. As James Harvey wrote in his recounting of the era, "No one was more closely identified with the screwball comedy than Jean Arthur...
. A box-office success, fan mail for Hayworth began pouring into Columbia's publicity department and Cohn began to see Hayworth as his first and official new star. The studio never officially had stars under contract, except for Jean Arthur, who was trying to break with Columbia. Cohn began to build Hayworth up the following year, in features such as Music in My Heart, The Lady in Question, and Angels Over Broadway
Angels Over Broadway
Angels Over Broadway is a 1940 drama film in which a hustler, a showgirl, and an alcoholic playwright try to help an embezzler win enough money to return what he stole before it is too late....
. He loaned Hayworth out to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
to appear in Susan and God
Susan and God
Susan and God is a 1940 comedy-drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Joan Crawford and Fredric March in a story about a matron who finds religion. The screenplay by Anita Loos was based upon a 1937 play by Rachel Crothers. The film was directed by George Cukor and produced by Hunt...
, opposite Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
.
On loan to Warner Brothers, Hayworth appeared as the second female lead in The Strawberry Blonde
The Strawberry Blonde
-Cast:* James Cagney as T. L. 'Biff' Grimes* Olivia de Havilland as Amy Lind* Rita Hayworth as Virginia Brush* Alan Hale as William 'Old Man' Grimes* Jack Carson as Hugo Barnstead* George Tobias as Nicholas Pappalas* Una O'Connor as Mrs...
(1941), opposite James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
and Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland
Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...
. A big box-office success, Hayworth's popularity rose and she immediately became one of Hollywood's hottest properties. So impressed was Warner Brothers that they tried to buy Hayworth's contract from Columbia, but Harry Cohn refused to release her. Her success led to a supporting role in Blood and Sand
Blood and Sand (1941 film)
Blood and Sand is a Technicolor film produced by 20th Century Fox, directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, and Alla Nazimova...
(1941), opposite Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...
and Linda Darnell
Linda Darnell
Linda Darnell was an American film actress.Darnell was a model as a child, and progressed to theater and film acting as an adolescent. At the encouragement of her mother, she made her first film in 1939, and appeared in supporting roles in big budget films for 20th Century Fox throughout the 1940s...
, with Fox, the studio that had dropped her six years before. In one of her most notable screen roles, Hayworth played Doña Sol des Muire, the first of many screen sirens. This was another box-office hit. She returned in triumph to Columbia Pictures and was cast in the musical You'll Never Get Rich
You'll Never Get Rich
You'll Never Get Rich is a 1941 Hollywood musical comedy film with a wartime theme starring Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Robert Benchley, Cliff Nazarro, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The film was directed by Sidney Lanfield...
(1941), opposite Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
in one of the highest-budgeted films Columbia had ever made. So successful was the picture that the following year, another Astaire-Hayworth picture was released You Were Never Lovelier
You Were Never Lovelier
You Were Never Lovelier is a 1942 Hollywood musical comedy film, set in Buenos Aires. It starred Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Adolphe Menjou and Xavier Cugat, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The film was directed by William A...
. In 1942, Hayworth also appeared in two other pictures, Tales of Manhattan
Tales of Manhattan
Tales of Manhattan is a 1942 American anthology film directed by Julien Duvivier. Thirteen writers, including Ben Hecht, Alan Campbell, Ferenc Molnár, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Donald Ogden Stewart worked on the six stories in this film.-Cast:...
and My Gal Sal
My Gal Sal
My Gal Sal is a 20th Century Fox musical starring Rita Hayworth and Victor Mature. The film is a biopic of 1890s composer and songwriter Paul Dresser and singer, Sally Elliot. The story it was based on was written by Paul Dresser's brother, novelist Theodore Dreiser...
.
It was during this period that Hayworth posed for a famous pin-up in Life Magazine, which showed her in a negligee perched seductively on her bed. When the U.S. joined World War II in December 1941, Hayworth's image made her one of the top two pin-up girls of the war years, the other being blonde Betty Grable
Betty Grable
Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...
. In 2002, the satin nightgown she wore for the picture sold for $26,888. Hayworth was called the "Love Goddess" (One biopic and one biography used the moniker in reference to her). "Everybody else does nude scenes," Hayworth said, "but I don't. I never made nude movies. I didn't have to do that. I danced. I was provocative, I guess, in some things. But I was not completely exposed."
Peak years at Columbia
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
. The film established her as Columbia's top star of the 1940s. Hayworth was adept in ballet, tap, ballroom, and Spanish routines. Cohn continued to effectively showcase Hayworth's talents in Technicolor films: Tonight and Every Night
Tonight and Every Night
Tonight and Every Night is a 1945 musical film starring Rita Hayworth and Lee Bowman, about wartime romance and tragedy in a London music hall that was determined not to miss a single performance during the Blitz...
(1945), with Lee Bowman
Lee Bowman
Lee Bowman was an American film and television actor.Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bowman graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1936 and began his film career playing a bit part in Swing High, Swing Low .His many film appearances include A Man to Remember , Love Affair , Third...
, and Down to Earth
Down to Earth (1947 film)
Down to Earth is a musical comedy starring Rita Hayworth, Larry Parks, and Marc Platt, and directed by Alexander Hall. It is a sequel to the 1941 film Here Comes Mr. Jordan, also directed by Hall. Edward Everett Horton and James Gleason reprise their roles from the earlier film, but Roland Culver...
(1947), with Larry Parks
Larry Parks
Larry Parks was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios.-Background:Parks grew up in Joliet,...
.
Her erotic appeal was most noted in Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor was a film director.-Biography:Born Károly Vidor to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, he served in the Hungarian Army during World War I...
's black and white film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
Gilda
Gilda
Gilda is a 1946 American black-and-white film noir directed by Charles Vidor. It stars Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth in her signature role as the ultimate femme fatale. The film was noted for cinematographer Rudolph Mate's lush photography, costume designer Jean Louis' wardrobe for Hayworth , and...
(1946), with Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
, which encountered difficulty with censors. The role, in which Hayworth in black satin performed a legendary one-glove striptease, turned her made her into a cultural icon as a femme fatale . Alluding to her bombshell status, in 1946, it was reported that her likeness was placed on the first nuclear bomb to be tested after World War II (at Bikini Atoll
Bikini Atoll
Bikini Atoll is an atoll, listed as a World Heritage Site, in the Micronesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands....
in the Pacific Ocean's Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
) as part of Operation Crossroads
Operation Crossroads
Operation Crossroads was a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. It was the first test of a nuclear weapon after the Trinity nuclear test in July 1945...
. However, recent research suggests all that was on the bomb was the word "GILDA". Hayworth performed one of her best-remembered dance routines, the samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...
from Tonight and Every Night (1945), while pregnant with her first child, Rebecca Welles (daughter with Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
). Hayworth was the first dancer to partner with both Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
and Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
on film.
The Lady from Shanghai
The Lady from Shanghai is a 1947 film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, his estranged wife Rita Hayworth and Everett Sloane. It is based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King.-Plot:...
(1947). Its failure at the box office was attributed in part to director/co-star Welles having had Hayworth's famous red locks cut off and the remainder of her hair dyed blonde for her role. This was done without Cohn's knowledge or approval and he was furious over the change. Her next film, The Loves of Carmen
The Loves of Carmen
The Loves of Carmen is a Technicolor film starring Rita Hayworth as the gypsy Carmen and Glenn Ford as her doomed lover Don José. It was directed by Charles Vidor and released by Columbia Pictures. The film was publicized as a dramatic adaptation of the novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée and is...
(1948), again with Glenn Ford, was the first film co-produced by Columbia and Hayworth's own production company, The Beckworth Corporation (named for her daughter Rebecca); it was Columbia's biggest moneymaker for that year. She received a percentage of the profits from this and all her subsequent films until 1955 when she dissolved Beckworth to pay off debts she owed to Columbia.
Struggles with Columbia
Hayworth had a strained relationship with Columbia Pictures for many years. In 1943, she was suspended without pay for nine weeks because she refused to appear in Once Upon a TimeOnce Upon a Time (1944 film)
Once Upon a Time is a 1944 fantasy film. Cary Grant plays a conniving showman who needs money desperately to save his theater.-Plot:Jerry Flynn has to come up with $100,000 within a week to keep his theater...
. In 1945, Hayworth received notice of her suspension by her employers, Columbia Pictures, "on the day she entered the maternity hospital in Hollywood."
In 1947, Rita Hayworth's new contract with Columbia provided a salary of US$250,000 plus 50% of film profits. In 1951 Columbia alleged it had $800,000 invested in properties for her, including the film she walked out on when she left Hollywood and married Aly Khan, having divorced Judson in 1942. She was suspended again for failing to report for work, this time for Affair in Trinidad
Affair in Trinidad
Affair in Trinidad is a film produced by Hayworth's Beckworth Corporation, released by Columbia Pictures, and starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. It is notable as Hayworth's "comeback" film after four years away from Columbia, as a re-teaming of the Gilda co-stars, and for a fiery opening...
. In 1952 she refused to report for work because "she objected to the script." In 1955, she sued to get out of a contract with the studio, asking for her $150,000 salary, alleging filming failed to start work when agreed. She said "I was in Switzerland when they sent me the script for Affair in Trinidad and I threw it across the room. But I did the picture, and Pal Joey
Pal Joey (film)
Pal Joey is a 1957 film, loosely adapted from the musical play of the same name, and starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, and Kim Novak. Jo Ann Greer sang for Hayworth, as she had done previously in Affair in Trinidad and Miss Sadie Thompson. Kim Novak's singing voice was dubbed by Trudy Erwin...
too. I came back to Columbia because I wanted to work and first, see, I had to finish that goddamn contract, which is how Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
owned me!" "Harry Cohn thought of me as one of the people he could exploit," said Hayworth, "and make a lot of money. And I did make a lot of money for him, but not much for me."
Hayworth was still upset with Columbia and its head Harry Cohn many years after her film career had ended and he was dead. "I used to have to punch a time clock at Columbia," noted Hayworth. "Every day of my life. That's what it was like. I was under exclusive contract, like they owned me, ... I think he had my dressing room bugged... He was very possessive of me as a person, he didn't want me to go out with anybody, have any friends. No one can live that way. So I fought him... You want to know what I think of Harry Cohn? He was a monster."
Another source of "gnawing resentment" for Hayworth was her studio's failure to train her to sing or even encourage her to learn how to sing. Although she appeared to sing in many of her films, it was almost always dubbed. The public didn't know this closely guarded secret, and she ended up embarrassed because at USO shows she was constantly asked by the troops to sing. "I wanted to study singing," Hayworth complained, "but Harry Cohn kept saying, 'Who needs it?' and the studio wouldn't pay for it. They had me so intimidated that I couldn't have done it anyway. They always said, 'Oh, no, we can't let you do it. There's no time for that; it has to be done right now!' I was under contract, and that was it."
Although Cohn had a reputation as a hard taskmaster, he also had legitimate criticisms of Hayworth. He had invested heavily in her before she began a reckless affair with the married Aly Khan, even though it could have caused a backlash against her career and Columbia's success. A British newspaper called for a boycott of Hayworth's films. "Hollywood must be told", said The People
The People
The People, previously known as the Sunday People, is a British tabloid Sunday-only newspaper. The paper was founded on 16 October 1881.It is published by the Trinity Mirror Group.In July 2011 it had an average daily circulation of 806,544....
, "its already tarnished reputation will sink to rock bottom if it restores this reckless woman to a place among its stars." Cohn himself expressed his frustration with Hayworth's relationships in an interview with Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine. "Hayworth might be worth ten million dollars today easily! She owned 25% of the profits with her own company and had hit after hit and she had to get married and had to get out of the business and took a suspension because she fell in love again! In five years, at two pictures a year, at 25%! Think of what she could have made! But she didn't make pictures! She took two or three suspensions! She got mixed up with different characters! Unpredictable!"
Later career
After the collapse of her marriage to Aly Khan in 1951, Hayworth returned to America with great fanfare to star in a string of hit films: Affair in TrinidadAffair in Trinidad
Affair in Trinidad is a film produced by Hayworth's Beckworth Corporation, released by Columbia Pictures, and starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. It is notable as Hayworth's "comeback" film after four years away from Columbia, as a re-teaming of the Gilda co-stars, and for a fiery opening...
(1952) with favorite co-star Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
, Salome
Salome (1953 film)
Salome is a Biblical epic film made in Technicolor by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by William Dieterle and produced by Buddy Adler from a screenplay by Harry Kleiner and Jesse Lasky Jr. The music score was by George Duning, the dance music by Daniele Amfitheatrof and the cinematography by...
(1953) with Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...
and Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger
Stewart Granger was an English-American film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.-Early life:He was born James Lablache Stewart in Old...
, and Miss Sadie Thompson
Miss Sadie Thompson
Miss Sadie Thompson is 1953 American musical 3D film starring Rita Hayworth, Aldo Ray, José Ferrer, and released by Columbia Pictures. The film is based on the W. Somerset Maugham short story Miss Thompson...
(1953) with José Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
and Aldo Ray
Aldo Ray
Aldo Ray was an American actor.-Life and career:Ray was born in Pen Argyl, PA, to an Italian family of five brothers and one sister. His brother Mario lettered in football at USC in the years 1952-54...
, for which her performance won critical acclaim. Then she was off the big screen for another four years, due mainly to a tumultuous marriage to singer Dick Haymes
Dick Haymes
Richard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes was an Argentine actor and one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, who was an actor, television host, and songwriter....
. After making Fire Down Below
Fire Down Below (1957 film)
Fire Down Below is a 1957 adventure drama film starring Rita Hayworth, Jack Lemmon and Robert Mitchum and was directed by Robert Parrish.It was based on Max Catto's 1954 novel and filmed by Warwick Films on location in Trinidad and Tobago in Technicolor and CinemaScope.-Plot:After the Korean War,...
(1957) with Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
and Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...
, and her last musical Pal Joey
Pal Joey (film)
Pal Joey is a 1957 film, loosely adapted from the musical play of the same name, and starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, and Kim Novak. Jo Ann Greer sang for Hayworth, as she had done previously in Affair in Trinidad and Miss Sadie Thompson. Kim Novak's singing voice was dubbed by Trudy Erwin...
(1957) with Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
and Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
, Hayworth finally left Columbia. She received good reviews for her acting in such films as Separate Tables
Separate Tables
Separate Tables is the collective name of two one-act plays written by Sir Terence Rattigan, both taking place in the Beauregard Private Hotel, Bournemouth, a seaside town on the south coast of England. The first play, entitled "Table by the Window", focuses on the troubled relationship between a...
(1958) with Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
and David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...
, and The Story on Page One
The Story on Page One (film)
The Story on Page One is a 1959 drama film directed by Clifford Odets, starring Anthony Franciosa, Rita Hayworth and Gig Young. Josephine Morris is accused of murdering her husband Mike, in conspiracy with Larry Ellis...
(1960) with Anthony Franciosa
Anthony Franciosa
Anthony Franciosa was an American actor, usually billed as Tony Franciosa during the height of his career.-Early life:...
, and continued working throughout the 1960s. In 1962, her planned Broadway debut in Step on a Crack was cancelled for undisclosed health reasons.
She continued to act in films until the early 1970s and made a well-publicized 1971 television appearance on The Carol Burnett Show
The Carol Burnett Show
The Carol Burnett Show is a variety / sketch comedy television show starring Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway. It originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967, to March 29, 1978, for 278 episodes and originated from CBS Television City's Studio 33...
. Her last film was The Wrath of God
The Wrath of God
The Wrath of God is an offbeat Western genre film released in 1972. It starred Robert Mitchum, Frank Langella, Rita Hayworth and Victor Buono and was directed by Ralph Nelson....
(1972).
Physical appearance
Hayworth was a top glamour girl in the 1940s, a pin-up girl for military servicemen and a beauty icon for women. At 5'6" (168 cmCentimetre
A centimetre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one hundredth of a metre, which is the SI base unit of length. Centi is the SI prefix for a factor of . Hence a centimetre can be written as or — meaning or respectively...
) and 120 lb (55 kgs
Kilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...
) she was tall enough for her height to be a concern to dancing partners like Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
. Hayworth got her big motion picture break because she was willing to change her hair color whereas another actress was unwilling. She reportedly changed her hair color eight times in eight movies.
In 1949 Hayworth's lips were voted best in the world by the Artists League of America. She had a modeling contract with Max Factor
Max Factor
Max Factor & Company is a cosmetics company, founded during 1909 by Maksymilian Faktorowicz , Max Factor, a Polish-Jewish cosmetician. Max Factor & Company was a related, two-family, multi-generational international cosmetics company before its sale in 1973 for $500 million dollars...
to promote its Tru-Color lipsticks and Pan-Stik make-up.
Barbara Leaming writes in her biography of Hayworth If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth (1989), that due to her fondness for alcohol and stressful lifestyle, Hayworth aged before her time. Re-appearing in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to begin work on her first film in three years in 1956 "despite the artfully applied make-up and shoulder-length red hair, there was no concealing the ravages of drink and stress. Deep lines had crept around her eyes and mouth, and she appeared worn, exhausted, older than her thirty-eight years." Leaming goes on to report that on the filming of Fire Down Below
Fire Down Below (1957 film)
Fire Down Below is a 1957 adventure drama film starring Rita Hayworth, Jack Lemmon and Robert Mitchum and was directed by Robert Parrish.It was based on Max Catto's 1954 novel and filmed by Warwick Films on location in Trinidad and Tobago in Technicolor and CinemaScope.-Plot:After the Korean War,...
she overheard a remark apparently unintended for her ears that she should hurry up as 'no amount of time was going to make her look any younger.' Additionally, while in San Francisco the following year filming Pal Joey
Pal Joey
Pal Joey is a 1940 epistolary novel by John O'Hara, which became the basis of the 1940 stage musical comedy and 1957 motion picture of the same name, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart....
she was signing autographs when one fan blurted out 'She looks so old. In the first case Hayworth is reported to have cried and in the second, although she blanked it at the time, it was clear that her premature aging was a sensitive subject to her. It was also one which meant she had to be carefully lit in films for the rest of her career.
Personal life
Hayworth claimed to be the antithesis of the characters she played. "I naturally am very shy... and I suffer from an inferiority complex." She once complained that "[M]en fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me." With typical modesty she later remarked that the only films she could watch without laughing were the dance musicals she made with Fred AstaireFred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
. "I guess the only jewels of my life," Hayworth said, "were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire."
Hayworth's two younger brothers, Vernon Cansino and Eduardo Cansino, Jr., both served in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Vernon left the U.S. Army in 1946 with several medals, including the Purple Heart
Purple Heart
The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York...
, and later married Susan Vail, a dancer.
Eduardo Cansino, Jr. followed Hayworth into acting; he was also under contract with Columbia Pictures. In 1950 he made his screen debut in Magic Carpet.
Marriages
Hayworth was married and divorced five times. Hayworth once said, "Basically, I am a good, gentle person, but I am attracted to mean personalities."Edward Charles Judson (1937–1942): Hayworth was 18 in 1937, she married Edward Judson, a domineering man more than twice her age. They eloped in Las Vegas. He was an oilman turned promoter who had played a major role in launching her acting career. He was a shrewd businessman and became her manager for months before he proposed. "He helped me with my career," Hayworth conceded after they divorced, "and helped himself to my money." She alleged Judson compelled her to transfer considerable property to him and promise to pay him $12,000 under threats that he would do her "great bodily harm." She filed for divorce from him on February 24, 1942 with the complaint of cruelty. She also noted to the press that his work took him to Oklahoma and Texas while she lived and worked in Hollywood. Judson was as old as her father, who was enraged by the marriage, which caused a rift between Hayworth and her parents until the divorce. Judson neglected to inform Hayworth before they married that he had previously been married twice. When she finally walked out on him, she literally had no money. She asked her friend, Hermes Pan
Hermes Pan (choreographer)
Hermes Pan was an American dancer and choreographer, principally celebrated as Fred Astaire's choreographic collaborator on the famous 1930s movie musicals starring Astaire and Ginger Rogers.-Early life:...
, if she could eat at his home, because she didn't have any money to buy food.
Orson Welles (1943–1948): Hayworth married Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
on September 7, 1943. None of her colleagues even knew about the planned marriage (before a judge) until she announced it the day before they got married. For the civil ceremony she wore a beige suit, ruffled white blouse, and a veil. A few hours after they got married, they returned to work at the studio. They had a daughter, Rebecca Welles (1944–2004). After marital struggles, and a final attempt at reconciliation, Hayworth said he told her he didn't want to be tied down by marriage.
"During the entire period of our marriage", she declared, "he showed no interest in establishing a home. When I suggested purchasing a home, he told me he didn't want the responsibility. Mr. Welles told me he never should have married in the first place; that it interfered with his freedom in his way of life."
Prince Aly Khan (1949–1953): In 1948 she left her film career to marry Prince Aly Khan
Prince Aly Khan
Prince Ali Solomone Aga Khan , known as Aly Khan was a son of Aga Khan III, the head of the Ismaili Muslims, and the father of Aga Khan IV. A socialite, racehorse owner and jockey, he was the third husband of actress Rita Hayworth...
, a son of Sultan Mahommed Shah, Aga Khan III
Aga Khan III
Sir Sultan Muhammed Shah, Aga Khan III, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, GCVO, PC was the 48th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims. He was one of the founders and the first president of the All-India Muslim League, and served as President of the League of Nations from 1937-38. He was nominated to represent India to...
, the leader of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam. They were married on May 27, 1949. Her bridal trousseau was Dior
Christian Dior SA
Christian Dior S.A. is a French company which owns the high-fashion clothing producer and retailer Christian Dior Couture, as well as holding 42% of LVMH Moët Hennessy • Louis Vuitton, the world's largest luxury goods firm. Both Dior and LVMH are controlled and chaired by businessman Bernard...
's New Look.
Aly Khan and his family were heavily involved in horse racing, so although Hayworth did not like horses or thoroughbred horse racing
Thoroughbred horse race
Thoroughbred horse racing is a worldwide sport and industry involving the racing of Thoroughbred horses. It is governed by different national bodies. There are two forms of the sport: Flat racing and National Hunt racing...
, she became a member of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club
Del Mar Racetrack
Del Mar Racetrack is an American Thoroughbred horse racing track at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in the seaside city of Del Mar, California, 20 miles north of San Diego. Operated by the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, it is known for the slogan: "Where The Turf Meets The Surf." It was built by a partnership...
. Hayworth's filly Double Rose won several races in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and notably finished second in the 1949 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe
Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe
The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe is a Group 1 flat horse race in France which is open to thoroughbreds aged three years or older. It is run at Longchamp over a distance of 2,400 metres , and it is scheduled to take place each year, usually on the first Sunday in October.Popularly referred to as the...
.
In 1951, while still married to Hayworth, Khan was spotted dancing with Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....
in the nightclub where he and his wife met. Hayworth responded by issuing an ultimatum and threatening to divorce him in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
. In early May she moved to Nevada to establish legal residence to qualify for a divorce. She holed up in Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. At a surface elevation of , it is located along the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America. Its depth is , making it the USA's second-deepest...
with her daughter despite a threat to kidnap her child. When she filed for divorce from Khan on September 2, 1951, she did so on the grounds of "extreme cruelty, entirely mental in nature."
Hayworth once said she might convert to Islam like her husband. During the custody fight over their daughter Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, Prince Khan said he wanted her raised as a Muslim; whereas Hayworth (who had been raised a Roman Catholic) wanted the child to be a Christian.
In fact, Hayworth had rejected a $1,000,000 offer to raise Yasmin as a Muslim from age seven and allow her to go to Europe for two or three months each year.
"Nothing will make me give up Yasmin's chance to live here in America among our precious freedoms and habits", declared Hayworth. "While I respect the Muslim faith and all other faiths it is my earnest wish that my daughter be raised as a normal, healthy American girl in the Christian faith. There isn't any amount of money in the entire world for which it is worth sacrificing this child's privilege of living as a normal Christian girl here in the United States. There just isn't anything else in the world that can compare with her sacred chance to do that. And I'm going to give it to Yasmin regardless of what it costs."
Dick Haymes (1953–1955): When Hayworth and Haymes
Dick Haymes
Richard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes was an Argentine actor and one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, who was an actor, television host, and songwriter....
first met, he was still married and his singing career was waning, but when the Love Goddess showed up at the clubs, he got a larger audience. Haymes was desperate for money as two of his former wives were taking legal action against him for unpaid child support. His financial problems were so bad he could not even return to California without being arrested. On July 7, 1954, his ex-wife Nora Haymes
Nora Eddington
Nora Eddington is best known as the second wife of actor Errol Flynn. She was also featured as an actress in several minor film roles.-Background & early life:...
got a bench warrant for his arrest, because he owed her $3,800 in alimony. Less than a week prior, his other ex-wife, Joanne Dru
Joanne Dru
Joanne Dru was an American film and television actress, known for such films as Red River and All the King's Men.-Career:...
, also got a bench warrant because she said he owed $4,800 in support payments for their three children. It was Hayworth who ended up paying most of Haymes's debts.
Haymes was born in Argentina, and didn't have solid proof of American citizenship. The authorities initiated proceedings to have him deported back to Argentina for being an illegal alien not long after he met Hayworth. He hoped Hayworth could influence the government and keep him in the United States. When she assumed responsibility for his citizenship, a bond was formed that led to marriage. The two were married on September 24, 1953 at the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas
Sands Hotel
The Sands Hotel was a historic Las Vegas Strip hotel/casino that operated from December 15, 1952 to June 30, 1996. Designed by architect Wayne McAllister, the Sands was the seventh resort that opened on the Strip....
, their wedding procession marching through the casino itself.
From the start, their marriage Haymes deeply indebted to the Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
(IRS). When Hayworth took time off from attending his comeback performances in Philadelphia, crowd numbers plummeted and when Haymes's $5000 weekly salary was attached by the IRS to pay a $100,000 bill, he was unable to even pay his pianist. Haymes' ex-wives demanded money while Hayworth publicly bemoaned her own lack of alimony from Aly Khan. At one point, the couple was effectively imprisoned in a hotel room for 24 hours in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
at the Hotel Madison as sheriff's deputies waited outside threatening to arrest Haymes for outstanding debts. All of this happened against a backdrop of death threats to Hayworth's children and an ongoing custody battle she was fighting with Khan. During the time she was living in a hotel in New York, Hayworth sent the children to live with their nanny in Westchester County
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...
. There they were found and photographed by a reporter from Confidential
Confidential (magazine)
Confidential was a periodical published quarterly from December 1952 to August 1953, and then bi-monthly until 1978. It was founded by Robert Harrison and is considered a pioneer in scandal, gossip, and exposé journalism. Newsweek said it featured "sin and sex with a seasoning of right wing...
magazine. That the photographer had been able to access them easily at the time of death-threats to them was one thing, but the article also depicted them "in a trash littered backyard, playing among an assortment of loaded ash cans". After a tumultuous two years together Haymes struck her in the face in 1955 in public at the Coconut Grove night club in Los Angeles. Hayworth packed her bags, walked out, and never returned. The extreme event leading to Hayworth's separation shook her and her doctor ordered her to remain in bed for several days.
Hayworth also found herself very short of money after her marriage to Haymes and having pursued Aly Khan for child support money throughout her marriage to Haymes, she now sued Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
for back payment of child support she claimed had never been paid. As well as being ultimately unsuccessful, this only added to her stressed condition and on the set of Fire Down Below
Fire Down Below (1957 film)
Fire Down Below is a 1957 adventure drama film starring Rita Hayworth, Jack Lemmon and Robert Mitchum and was directed by Robert Parrish.It was based on Max Catto's 1954 novel and filmed by Warwick Films on location in Trinidad and Tobago in Technicolor and CinemaScope.-Plot:After the Korean War,...
she was seen tearing up her bundle of mail and scattering the scraps in the sea. On being told one of these letters may have contained money she remarked "more trouble than money".
James Hill (1958–1961): After Haymes, Hayworth began a relationship with film producer James Hill, whom she went on to marry. By his own account, Hill started with the best intentions but wound up "as anxious to use her as all the rest." On February 2, 1958, Hayworth married Hill, who put her in one of her last major films, Separate Tables
Separate Tables (film)
Separate Tables is a 1958 American drama film based on two one-act plays by Terence Rattigan that were collectively known by this name. It was directed by Delbert Mann, and adapted by Rattigan, John Gay and an uncredited John Michael Hayes. Mary Grant designed the film's costumes.The film took the...
. On September 1, 1961, Hayworth filed for divorce from Hill, alleging extreme mental cruelty. He later wrote the book Rita Hayworth: A Memoir in which he suggested their marriage collapsed because he wanted Hayworth to continue making movies while she wanted both of them to retire from the Hollywood scene.
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
, in his book, In the Arena, sheds some light on Hayworth's brief marriage to Hill. Heston had never met her when he and his wife Lydia joined Hayworth and Hill for dinner in a restaurant in Spain with director George Marshall
George Marshall (director)
George E. Marshall was an American actor, screenwriter, producer, film and television director, active through the first six decades of movie history....
and Rex Harrison
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
, Hayworth's co-star in The Happy Thieves
The Happy Thieves
The Happy Thieves is a 1962 movie starring Rita Hayworth and directed by George Marshall.-Cast:*Rita Hayworth as Eve Lewis*Rex Harrison as Jimmy Bourne*Joseph Wiseman as Jean Marie Calbert*Alida Valli as Duchess Blanca...
. Heston, who was in Spain making El Cid
El Cid (film)
El Cid is a historical epic film, a romanticized story of the life of the Christian Castilian knight Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, called "El Cid" who in the 11th century fought the North African Almoravides and ultimately contributed to the unification of Spain.Made by Samuel Bronston Productions in...
, recalled in his memoir that "it turned into the single most embarrassing evening of my life", describing how Hill heaped "obscene abuse" on Hayworth until she was "reduced to a helpless flood of tears, her face buried in her hands". Heston writes how they all sat stunned, witnesses to a "marital massacre" and though he was "strongly tempted to slug him" (Hill), he instead simply took his wife Lydia home when she stood up, almost in tears herself. Heston ended by writing, "I'm ashamed of walking away from Miss Hayworth's humiliation. I never saw her again."
Health problems
Hayworth struggled with alcohol throughout her life. "I remember as a child", said her daughter, Yasmin Aga Khan, "that she had a drinking problem. She had difficulty coping with the ups and downs of the business... As a child, I thought, 'She has a drinking problem and she's an alcoholic.' That was very clear and I thought, 'Well, there's not much I can do. I can just, sort of, stand by and watch.' It's very difficult, seeing your mother, going through her emotional problems and drinking and then behaving in that manner;... Her condition became quite bad. It worsened and she did have an alcoholic breakdown and landed in the hospital."In 1972, Hayworth was 54 years old and wanted to retire from acting, but she was in need of money and reluctantly signed up for The Wrath of God
The Wrath of God
The Wrath of God is an offbeat Western genre film released in 1972. It starred Robert Mitchum, Frank Langella, Rita Hayworth and Victor Buono and was directed by Ralph Nelson....
. The experience, however, exposed her poor health and worsening mental state. She could not remember lines, so they had to film her scenes one line at a time. Extreme memory loss left her very nervous and resistant to doing at least one scene, which was then done by a double.
Even so, the following year Hayworth agreed to do one more movie, Tales That Witness Madness
Tales That Witness Madness
Tales That Witness Madness is a 1973 British horror film produced by Norman Priggen, directed by veteran horror director Freddie Francis, and written by actress Jennifer Jayne....
(1973). Her health was even worse by that time, so she abandoned the movie set, and returned to America. She never returned to acting.
In March 1974, both her brothers died within a week of each other, saddening her greatly, and causing her to drink even more heavily than before. In 1976 at London's Heathrow Airport, Hayworth was removed from a TWA flight during which she had an angry outburst while traveling with her agent. "Miss Hayworth had been drinking when she boarded the plane," revealed a TWA flight attendant, "and had several free drinks during the flight." The event attracted much negative publicity; a disturbing photograph was published in newspapers showing her looking very disheveled, sad, lost, ill, and barely recognizable.
Hayworth's alcoholism confused family, friends, colleagues — and even doctors — who were unable to immediately recognize Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
. "For several years in the 1970s, she had been misdiagnosed as an alcoholic." "It was the outbursts," said her daughter, "She'd fly into a rage. I can't tell you. I thought it was alcoholism-alcoholic dementia. We all thought that. The papers picked that up, of course. You can't imagine the relief just in getting a diagnosis. We had a name at last, Alzheimer's! Of course, that didn't really come until the last seven or eight years. She wasn't diagnosed as having Alzheimer's until 1980. There were two decades of hell before that."
In July 1981, Hayworth's health had deteriorated to the point where a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that because she was suffering from senile dementia, and no longer able to care for herself, she should be placed under the care of her daughter, Princess Yasmin Khan of New York City. She then lived in an apartment at The San Remo
The San Remo
The San Remo is a luxury, 27-floor, co-operative apartment building in New York City located between 74th and 75th streets, about 1/10 of a mile north of the Dakota building The San Remo is described by Glen Justice of the New York Times as "a dazzling two-tower building with captivating views...
on Central Park West
Central Park West
Central Park West is an avenue that runs north-south in the New York City borough of Manhattan, in the United States....
next to her daughter, who looked after her during her final years until she died.
Death
Rita Hayworth lapsed into a semicoma in February 1987. She died a few months later on May 14, 1987, aged 68 from Alzheimer's diseaseAlzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
in her Manhattan apartment. A funeral service for Hayworth was held on May 19, 1987 at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...
. Pallbearers included actors Ricardo Montalbán
Ricardo Montalbán
Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, KSG was a Mexican radio, television, theatre and film actor. He had a career spanning six decades and many notable roles...
, Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
, Don Ameche
Don Ameche
Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...
and choreographer Hermes Pan
Hermes Pan (choreographer)
Hermes Pan was an American dancer and choreographer, principally celebrated as Fred Astaire's choreographic collaborator on the famous 1930s movie musicals starring Astaire and Ginger Rogers.-Early life:...
. She was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City
Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City
Holy Cross Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery at 5835 West Slauson Avenue in Culver City, California, operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles....
. Her headstone includes the inscription: "To yesterday's companionship and tomorrow's reunion."
"Rita Hayworth was one of our country's most beloved stars", said President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, who had been an actor at the same time as Hayworth and would himself fall victim to Alzheimer's. "Glamorous and talented, she gave us many wonderful moments on stage and screen and delighted audiences from the time she was a young girl. In her later years, Rita became known for her struggle with Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
. Her courage and candor, and that of her family, were a great public service in bringing worldwide attention to a disease which we all hope will soon be cured. Nancy and I are saddened by Rita's death. She was a friend who we will miss. We extend our deep sympathy to her family."
Awards
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
in Circus World
Circus World (film)
Circus World, also known as Samuel Bronston's Circus World, is a 1964 drama film made by the independent production company Samuel Bronston Productions and distributed by Paramount Pictures...
(1964) (U.K.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
title: Magnificent Showman), for which she received a Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
The Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture - Drama was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1951...
, her only notable-award nod.
In 1977, Hayworth was the recipient of the National Screen Heritage Award. Despite appearing in 61 films over 37 years, including leading roles in successful films like Gilda, she never received an Academy Award nomination. Hayworth is included as one of the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
's Greatest Stars of All Time
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars
Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars is a list of the top 50 greatest screen legends of American cinema, 25 male and 25 female...
.
Legacy
One of the major fund raisers for the Alzheimer's AssociationAlzheimer's Association
The Alzheimer's Association, incorporated on April 10, 1980 as the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association, Inc., is a non-profit American voluntary health organization which focuses on care, support and research for Alzheimer's disease....
is the annual Rita Hayworth Gala, held in New York City and Chicago, Illinois. Hayworth's daughter, Yasmin Aga Khan, has been the hostess for these events and a major sponsor of Alzheimer's Disease charities and awareness programs. Since 1985 they have raised more than US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
42 million for the Association. The film I Remember Better When I Paint
I Remember Better When I Paint
I Remember Better When I Paint is a 2009 feature length international documentary film about the positive impact of art and other creative therapies in people with Alzheimer's disease and how these approaches can change the way the disease is viewed by society...
(2009) features a stirring interview with Hayworth's daughter describing how her mother took up painting while struggling with Alzheimer's and produced beautiful works of art.
Actress Lynda Carter
Lynda Carter
Lynda Jean Carter is an American actress and singer, best known for being Miss World USA and as the star of the 1970s television series The New Original Wonder Woman and The New Adventures of Wonder Woman ....
portrayed Hayworth in the television movie Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess. Actress Veronica Watt also portrayed her in the film Hollywoodland
Hollywoodland
Hollywoodland is a 2006 American biographical docudrama film directed by Allen Coulter in his feature directorial debut. The film documents a fictional account of the investigation surrounding the death of actor George Reeves , the star of the 1950s television series Adventures of Superman. Adrien...
(2006).
Unrealized film projects
The following were movies and roles for which Hayworth was either considered, turned down by Hayworth herself, replaced with someone else, or never sufficed, for various reasons.- A Message to GarciaA Message to Garcia (1936 film)A Message to Garcia is a 1936 movie starring Wallace Beery and Barbara Stanwyck, and directed by George Marshall. The supporting cast includes John Boles and Alan Hale, Sr.. The film is loosely based on an incident during the Spanish-American War. Dell Henderson plays William McKinley but with a...
(1936) Hayworth had a small role as the sister of Barbara StanwyckBarbara StanwyckBarbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
but it was deleted before general release. - RamonaRamona (1936 film)Ramona is a 1936 Technicolor drama film directed by Henry King, based on Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona. This was the third adaptation of the film, and the first one with sound...
(1936) Hayworth made color screen tests for the role but Hayworth was later dropped from Fox and given to Loretta YoungLoretta YoungLoretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953...
. - The Lady EscapesThe Lady EscapesThe Lady Escapes is a 1937 American comedy film directed by Eugene Forde and starring Gloria Stuart, Michael Whalen, George Sanders and Cora Witherspoon...
(1937) Also a Fox feature, Hayworth was dropped before appearing in a Spanish language version of this picture. - HolidayHoliday (1938 film)Holiday is a 1938 is a film directed by George Cukor, a remake of the 1930 film of the same name. The film is a romantic comedy which tells the story of a man who has risen from humble beginnings only to be torn between his free-thinking lifestyle and the tradition of his wealthy fiancée's family...
(1938) She tested for the role of the sister of Katharine HepburnKatharine HepburnKatharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
but the role was given to Doris Nolan instead. - Convicted WomanConvicted WomanConvicted Woman is a Crime movie, starring Rochelle Hudson - Glenn Ford and directed by Nick Grinde-Plot:Betty Andrews , although innocent, is convicted of a theft of department stores and, despite the efforts of his lawyer Mary Ellis and a young journalist, Jim Brent , Betty is sentenced to a...
(1940) This would have been Hayworth's first feature with Glenn FordGlenn FordGlenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
but she was eventually loaned out to appear in MGM's Susan and GodSusan and GodSusan and God is a 1940 comedy-drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Joan Crawford and Fredric March in a story about a matron who finds religion. The screenplay by Anita Loos was based upon a 1937 play by Rachel Crothers. The film was directed by George Cukor and produced by Hunt...
. - Boom Town (1940) Hayworth made a screen test for this picture, but the role instead went to MGM contractee Hedy LamarrHedy LamarrHedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...
. - Tars and Spurs (1946) Hayworth was the first choice for the role but pregnancy forced her to drop out. The role was given to Janet Blair.
- Dead Reckoning (1947) Hayworth demanded a complete rewrite for this picture and was replaced by Lizabeth ScottLizabeth ScottLizabeth Scott is an American actress and singer widely known for her film noir roles.-Early life:She was born Emma Matzo in the Pine Brook section of Scranton, Pennsylvania, one of six children, to Ruthenian parents who had emigrated from Uzhgorod, in what is now Ukraine...
. - In the mid-1940s, Fox considered a musical biography of the Duncan sisters and had planned to pair Hayworth with Betty GrableBetty GrableElizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...
. But the studio was not able to obtain legal clearance. - In 1947, Columbia cast Hayworth in a Technicolor western called Lona Hanson, which was to pair her with William HoldenWilliam HoldenWilliam Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...
. It was first postponed and later cancelled. - Miss Grant Takes RichmondMiss Grant Takes RichmondMiss Grant Takes Richmond is a 1949 comedy film starring Lucille Ball and William Holden, directed by Lloyd Bacon and released by Columbia Pictures...
(1949) Hayworth was placed on suspension and was replaced with Lucille BallLucille BallLucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
. - From Here to EternityFrom Here to EternityFrom Here to Eternity is a 1953 drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on the novel of the same name by James Jones. It deals with the troubles of soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra and Ernest Borgnine stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the...
(1953) Hayworth demanded a vacation before shooting this picture. Deborah KerrDeborah KerrDeborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time...
soon accepted the role. - Human DesireHuman DesireHuman Desire is a black-and-white film noir directed by Fritz Lang, and based on the novel La Bête humaine by Émile Zola. The story was filmed twice before: La Bête humaine directed by Jean Renoir and Die Bestie im Menschen .-Plot:Railroad supervisor Carl Buckley gets fired from his job...
(1954) Hayworth failed to appear for the first scenes, was placed on suspension, and replaced with Gloria GrahameGloria GrahameGloria Grahame was an American Academy Award–winning actress.Grahame began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her first film for MGM. Despite a featured role in It's a Wonderful Life , MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract to RKO Studios...
. - Hayworth was given the female lead in a biblical film Joseph and His Brethren. The film was cancelled after Cohn refused to allow ex-husbands Orson WellesOrson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
and Dick HaymesDick HaymesRichard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes was an Argentine actor and one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, who was an actor, television host, and songwriter....
to appear. - The Barefoot ContessaThe Barefoot ContessaThe Barefoot Contessa is a 1954 film about the life and loves of fictional Spanish sex symbol Maria Vargas. It was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and stars Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner and Edmond O'Brien....
(1954) Hayworth turned down the role made famous by Ava GardnerAva GardnerAva Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...
. Hayworth felt there were too many similarities in it from her own life. - The Country GirlThe Country Girl (1954 film)The Country Girl is a 1954 drama film adapted by George Seaton from a Clifford Odets play of the same name, which tells the story of an alcoholic has-been actor struggling with the one last chance he's been given to resurrect his career. It stars Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and William Holden. Seaton,...
(1954) Hayworth and Jennifer JonesJennifer JonesPhylis Lee Isley , better known by her stage name Jennifer Jones, was an American actress. A five-time Academy Award nominee, Jones won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Song of Bernadette .-Early life:Jones was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the daughter of Flora Mae and...
were considered for the lead role. Jones was actually cast; but dropped out due to pregnancy. The part went to Grace KellyGrace KellyGrace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
who won an Oscar for her performance. - Hayworth was given the lead in I Want My Mother! but the film was cancelled. Hayworth would have played the mother of a psychopathic killer awaiting execution in San Quentin.
- Hayworth was given the lead in the film version OF There Must Be A Pony but it was later cancelled. She would have played a fading film star in a suicide scandal.
- Welcome to Hard Times (1967) Hayworth was supposed to co-star with Glenn FordGlenn FordGlenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
but eventually both dropped out. - She was offered one of the female leads in a horror film along with Lana TurnerLana TurnerLana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...
in the late 1960s but turned down the offer. - Tales That Witness MadnessTales That Witness MadnessTales That Witness Madness is a 1973 British horror film produced by Norman Priggen, directed by veteran horror director Freddie Francis, and written by actress Jennifer Jayne....
(1973) Hayworth worked for four days on this film then quit without explanation and was replaced by Kim NovakKim NovakKim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
.
As Rita Cansino
- La Fiesta (Short subject, 1926)
- Cruz DiabloCruz DiabloCruz Diablo is a 1934 Mexican film. It was directed byFernando de Fuentes....
aka The Devil's Cross (Uncredited, 1934) - In CalienteIn CalienteIn Caliente, also known as Viva Señorita, is a 1935 film written by Ralph Block, directed by Lloyd Bacon, and starred Dolores del Río.- Plot :...
(1935) - Under the Pampas Moon (1935)
- Charlie Chan in EgyptCharlie Chan in EgyptCharlie Chan in Egypt is the eighth 20th Century Fox Charlie Chan film starring Warner Oland in the title role. It was released in 1935. -Plot:Charlie Chan is hired when an archaeologist disappears during the excavation of ancient art treasures in Egypt...
(1935) - Dante's Inferno (1935)
- Paddy O'Day (1935)
- HumanCargo (1936)
- Meet Nero WolfeMeet Nero WolfeMeet Nero Wolfe is a 1936 mystery film based on the 1934 novel Fer-de-Lance, written by Rex Stout. Set in New York, the story introduced the detective genius Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin...
(1936) - RebellionRebellionRebellion, uprising or insurrection, is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state...
(1936) - The Dancing Pirate (1936)
- Old Louisiana (1937)
- Hit the SaddleHit the SaddleHit the Saddle is a 1937 "Three Mesquiteers" Western B-movie starring Bob Livingston, Ray Corrigan, Max Terhune, and Rita Hayworth, before she became famous. The film was directed by Mack V. Wright.-Plot:...
(1937) - Trouble in TexasTrouble in Texas- Cast :*Tex Ritter as Tex Masters*White Flash as Tex's horse*Rita Hayworth as Carmen Serano*Yakima Canutt as Henchman Squint Palmer*Charles King as Henchman Pinto*Horace Murphy as Sidekick Lucky*Earl Dwire as Barker*Tex Cooper as Rodeo Announcer...
(1937)
As Rita Hayworth
- Criminals of the Air (1937)
- Girls Can Play (1937)
- The Game That Kills (1937)
- Paid to DancePaid to DancePaid to Dance is a 1937 drama film starring Don Terry, Jacqueline Wells, and Rita Hayworth.-Plot summary:...
(1937) - The ShadowThe ShadowThe Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally in pulp magazines, then on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of the title character, a crime-fighting vigilante in the pulps, which carried over to the airwaves as a "wealthy, young man about town"...
(1937) - Who Killed Gail Preston? (1938)
- Special Inspector (1938)
- There's Always a WomanThere's Always a WomanThere's Always a Woman is a 1938 comedy mystery film starring Joan Blondell and Melvyn Douglas as married detectives investigating a murder...
(1938) - Convicted (1938)
- Juvenile CourtJuvenile courtA juvenile court is a tribunal having special authority to try and pass judgments for crimes committed by children or adolescents who have not attained the age of majority...
(1938) - The Renegade RangerThe Renegade RangerThe Renegade Ranger is a 1938 American film directed by David Howard.- Cast :*George O'Brien as Captain Jack Steele*Rita Hayworth as Judith Alvarez*Tim Holt as Larry Corwin*Ray Whitley as Happy*Lucio Villegas as Don Juan Campielo...
(1938) - Homicide Bureau (1939)
- The Lone Wolf Spy HuntThe Lone Wolf Spy HuntThe Lone Wolf Spy Hunt is a 1939 film starring Warren William, Ida Lupino, Rita Hayworth, and Virginia Weidler. The film was directed by Peter Godfrey....
(1939) - Only Angels Have WingsOnly Angels Have WingsOnly Angels Have Wings is a movie directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. It is generally regarded as being among Hawks' finest films, particularly in its portrayal of the professionalism of the pilots, its atmosphere, and the flying sequences.It inspired the 1983 television...
(1939) - Music in My Heart (1940)
- Blondie on a Budget (1940)
- Susan and GodSusan and GodSusan and God is a 1940 comedy-drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Joan Crawford and Fredric March in a story about a matron who finds religion. The screenplay by Anita Loos was based upon a 1937 play by Rachel Crothers. The film was directed by George Cukor and produced by Hunt...
(1940) - The Lady in QuestionThe Lady in QuestionThe Lady in Question is a 1940 film directed by Charles Vidor. It stars Brian Aherne and Rita Hayworth.-Cast:*Brian Aherne as Andre Morestan*Rita Hayworth as Natalie Roguin*Glenn Ford as Pierre Morestan*Irene Rich as Michele Morestan...
(1940) - Angels Over BroadwayAngels Over BroadwayAngels Over Broadway is a 1940 drama film in which a hustler, a showgirl, and an alcoholic playwright try to help an embezzler win enough money to return what he stole before it is too late....
(1940) - The Strawberry BlondeThe Strawberry Blonde-Cast:* James Cagney as T. L. 'Biff' Grimes* Olivia de Havilland as Amy Lind* Rita Hayworth as Virginia Brush* Alan Hale as William 'Old Man' Grimes* Jack Carson as Hugo Barnstead* George Tobias as Nicholas Pappalas* Una O'Connor as Mrs...
(1941) - Affectionately Yours (1941)
- Blood and SandBlood and Sand (1941 film)Blood and Sand is a Technicolor film produced by 20th Century Fox, directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starring Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Rita Hayworth, and Alla Nazimova...
(1941) - You'll Never Get RichYou'll Never Get RichYou'll Never Get Rich is a 1941 Hollywood musical comedy film with a wartime theme starring Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Robert Benchley, Cliff Nazarro, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The film was directed by Sidney Lanfield...
(1941) - My Gal SalMy Gal SalMy Gal Sal is a 20th Century Fox musical starring Rita Hayworth and Victor Mature. The film is a biopic of 1890s composer and songwriter Paul Dresser and singer, Sally Elliot. The story it was based on was written by Paul Dresser's brother, novelist Theodore Dreiser...
(1942) - Tales of ManhattanTales of ManhattanTales of Manhattan is a 1942 American anthology film directed by Julien Duvivier. Thirteen writers, including Ben Hecht, Alan Campbell, Ferenc Molnár, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Donald Ogden Stewart worked on the six stories in this film.-Cast:...
(1942) - You Were Never LovelierYou Were Never LovelierYou Were Never Lovelier is a 1942 Hollywood musical comedy film, set in Buenos Aires. It starred Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Adolphe Menjou and Xavier Cugat, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The film was directed by William A...
(1942)
- Show Business at WarShow Business at WarShow Business at War is a short film made in 1943 to tout the United States film industry's contribution to the war effort. Several studios collaborated on the production and approximately 70 stars, producers, directors and studio executives appeared in it....
(1943) (short subject) - Cover GirlCover Girl (1944 film)Cover Girl is a 1944 American musical film starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. The film tells the story of a chorus girl given a chance at stardom when she is offered an opportunity to be a highly-paid cover girl...
(1944) - Tonight and Every NightTonight and Every NightTonight and Every Night is a 1945 musical film starring Rita Hayworth and Lee Bowman, about wartime romance and tragedy in a London music hall that was determined not to miss a single performance during the Blitz...
(1945) - GildaGildaGilda is a 1946 American black-and-white film noir directed by Charles Vidor. It stars Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth in her signature role as the ultimate femme fatale. The film was noted for cinematographer Rudolph Mate's lush photography, costume designer Jean Louis' wardrobe for Hayworth , and...
(1946) - Down to EarthDown to Earth (1947 film)Down to Earth is a musical comedy starring Rita Hayworth, Larry Parks, and Marc Platt, and directed by Alexander Hall. It is a sequel to the 1941 film Here Comes Mr. Jordan, also directed by Hall. Edward Everett Horton and James Gleason reprise their roles from the earlier film, but Roland Culver...
(1947) - The Lady from ShanghaiThe Lady from ShanghaiThe Lady from Shanghai is a 1947 film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, his estranged wife Rita Hayworth and Everett Sloane. It is based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King.-Plot:...
(1947) - The Loves of CarmenThe Loves of CarmenThe Loves of Carmen is a Technicolor film starring Rita Hayworth as the gypsy Carmen and Glenn Ford as her doomed lover Don José. It was directed by Charles Vidor and released by Columbia Pictures. The film was publicized as a dramatic adaptation of the novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée and is...
(1948) - Champagne Safari (1952)
- Affair in TrinidadAffair in TrinidadAffair in Trinidad is a film produced by Hayworth's Beckworth Corporation, released by Columbia Pictures, and starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. It is notable as Hayworth's "comeback" film after four years away from Columbia, as a re-teaming of the Gilda co-stars, and for a fiery opening...
(1952) - SalomeSalome (1953 film)Salome is a Biblical epic film made in Technicolor by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by William Dieterle and produced by Buddy Adler from a screenplay by Harry Kleiner and Jesse Lasky Jr. The music score was by George Duning, the dance music by Daniele Amfitheatrof and the cinematography by...
(1953) - Miss Sadie ThompsonMiss Sadie ThompsonMiss Sadie Thompson is 1953 American musical 3D film starring Rita Hayworth, Aldo Ray, José Ferrer, and released by Columbia Pictures. The film is based on the W. Somerset Maugham short story Miss Thompson...
(1953) - Fire Down BelowFire Down Below (1957 film)Fire Down Below is a 1957 adventure drama film starring Rita Hayworth, Jack Lemmon and Robert Mitchum and was directed by Robert Parrish.It was based on Max Catto's 1954 novel and filmed by Warwick Films on location in Trinidad and Tobago in Technicolor and CinemaScope.-Plot:After the Korean War,...
(1957) - Pal JoeyPal Joey (film)Pal Joey is a 1957 film, loosely adapted from the musical play of the same name, and starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, and Kim Novak. Jo Ann Greer sang for Hayworth, as she had done previously in Affair in Trinidad and Miss Sadie Thompson. Kim Novak's singing voice was dubbed by Trudy Erwin...
(1957) - Separate TablesSeparate TablesSeparate Tables is the collective name of two one-act plays written by Sir Terence Rattigan, both taking place in the Beauregard Private Hotel, Bournemouth, a seaside town on the south coast of England. The first play, entitled "Table by the Window", focuses on the troubled relationship between a...
(1958) - They Came to CorduraThey Came To CorduraThey Came To Cordura is a 1959 Western film co-written and directed by Robert Rossen, starring Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth, and featuring Van Heflin, Tab Hunter, Richard Conte, Michael Callan, and Dick York. It was based on a 1958 novel by Glendon Swarthout.-Plot:Tom Thorn is a U.S...
(1959) - The Story on Page OneThe Story on Page One (film)The Story on Page One is a 1959 drama film directed by Clifford Odets, starring Anthony Franciosa, Rita Hayworth and Gig Young. Josephine Morris is accused of murdering her husband Mike, in conspiracy with Larry Ellis...
(1959) - The Happy ThievesThe Happy ThievesThe Happy Thieves is a 1962 movie starring Rita Hayworth and directed by George Marshall.-Cast:*Rita Hayworth as Eve Lewis*Rex Harrison as Jimmy Bourne*Joseph Wiseman as Jean Marie Calbert*Alida Valli as Duchess Blanca...
(1962) - Circus WorldCircus World (film)Circus World, also known as Samuel Bronston's Circus World, is a 1964 drama film made by the independent production company Samuel Bronston Productions and distributed by Paramount Pictures...
(1964) - The Money TrapThe Money TrapThe Money Trap is a 1965 drama film starring Glenn Ford , Elke Sommer and Rita Hayworth and directed by Burt Kennedy.-Plot:Joe Baron is a cop with financial troubles because of his wife Lisa's constant spending. One day, a burglar is reported shot at the home of a doctor...
(1965) - The Poppy Is Also a FlowerThe Poppy Is Also a FlowerThe Poppy Is Also a Flower is an ABC made-for-television spy and anti-drug film. The film was directed by Terence Young and stars Senta Berger, Stephen Boyd, Trevor Howard, Rita Hayworth, Angie Dickinson, Yul Brynner, and Marcello Mastroianni...
(1966) - L'Avventuriero (1967)
- I BastardiSons of SatanSons of Satan is a 1968 Italian crime film directed by Duccio Tessari and starring Rita Hayworth.-Cast:* Rita Hayworth - Martha* Giuliano Gemma - Jason* Klaus Kinski - Adam* Margaret Lee - Karen* Claudine Auger - Barbara* Serge Marquand - Jimmy...
(1968) - The Naked Zoo (1971)
- Road to SalinaRoad to SalinaRoad to Salina is a 1970 French film, a psychological thriller directed by Georges Lautner. It stars Robert Walker, Jr., Mimsy Farmer and Rita Hayworth. The film is based upon Maurice Cury’s novel Sur la Route de Salina...
(1971) - The Wrath of GodThe Wrath of GodThe Wrath of God is an offbeat Western genre film released in 1972. It starred Robert Mitchum, Frank Langella, Rita Hayworth and Victor Buono and was directed by Ralph Nelson....
(1972)
Further reading
- Kobal, John. Rita Hayworth: The Time, the Place, the Woman (1977). ISBN 0-393-07526-5
- McLean, Adrienne L. Being Rita Hayworth: Labor, Identity, and Hollywood Stardom (2004). ISBN 0-8135-3389-9
- Morella, Joe and Epstein, Edward Z. Rita: The Life of Rita Hayworth (1983). ISBN 0-385-29265-1
- Peary, Gerald. Rita Hayworth: A Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies (1976). ISBN 0-515-04116-5
- Ringgold, Gene. The Films of Rita Hayworth: The Legend and Career of a Love Goddess (1974). ISBN 0-8065-0439-0
- Roberts-Frenzel, Caren. Rita Hayworth: A Photographic Retrospective (2001). ISBN 0-8109-1434-4