Hayworth, Rita
NAME: Hayworth, Rita
OTHER-NAME: Margarita Carmen Cansino; Rita Cansino
BIRTH: 17 October, 1918, Brooklyn, NY
DEATH: 14 May, 1987, New York, NY
CATEGORY: Performing Arts & Sports
DISCIPLINE: Movie actress
ASSESSMENT: One of Hollywood’s most glamorous stars in the 1940’s
LANGUAGE: English
EDUCATION: Unknown.
ACHIEVEMENT: 1965 Golden Globe nomination for Circus World (1964)
MAJOR-WORK: Cover Girl (1944), Gilda(1946)
PARENTS: Eduardo Cansino, Volga Haworth
SPOUSE: Edward Judson (1939-1946), Orson Welles (1947-1949), Prince Aly Khan (1949-1951)
SIBLINGS: None
CHILDREN: Rebecca (Welles); Yasmin (Aly Khan)
DETAILS:
Rita Hayworth was daughter to Spanish born dancer, Eduardo Cansino and his partner, Volga Haworth, and rose to American movie stardom during the 1940’s and 1950’s with a string of Hollywood hits.
Early on Hayworth worked as a dancer with her parents’ night club act. During her teenage years, she also appeared under the name of Rita Cansino in several films such as Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935), Dante’s Inferno (1935) and Meet Nero Wolfe (1936).
Rita’s first husband and manager, Edward Judson, advised Rita to alter her looks so as to get more notable roles. In 1939 she changed her last name to Hayworth and dyed her hair from black to auburn. This helped her land the role of an unfaithful wife who tries to seduce Cary Grant in Only Angels Have Wings (1939).
After this breakthrough role, Hayworth began to star as femme fatales in quality pictures such as The Lady in Question (1940), Blood and Sand (1941) and The Strawberry Blonde (1941). Hayworth also starred opposite Fred Astaire in You’ll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942).
She also starred with Gene <starred with> Kelly* in Cover Girl (1944), which catapulted both of them to international stardom. During World War II, Hayworth became a pin-up queen. A publicity still of Hayworth kneeling seductively on a bed became an image burned into the minds of soldiers and teenage boys alike. This bolstered her popularity throughout America.
In 1946, Hayworth played her definitive role, in the film noir Gilda, portraying her as both temptress and abused victim. Daring for its time, Gilda was loaded with sexually-suggestive dialogue.
Hayworth then married Orson Welles and starred in another film noir classic, The Lady from Shanghai (1948) directed by Welles. Life Magazine dubbed Hayworth “The Love Goddess,” a nickname that would follow her for the rest of her life.
Throughout the 1950’s, Hayworth appeared in a number of films including Affair in Trinidad (1952), Salome (1953), Miss Sadie Thompson (1953), Pal Joey(1957) featuring Frank Sinatra, Separate Tables (1958) and They Came to Cordura (1959).
In the 1960’s Hayworth became frustrated with Hollywood and, after several failed marriages, decided to end her career in acting. Her final film was The Wrath of God(1972).
Rumors circulated in the late 1960’s and 1970’s about her inability to remember lines and her drunken behavior. It was later discovered that in fact she was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Although Hayworth was not officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s until 1980, the publicity surrounding her battle with the condition would increase national awareness of the disease.
Critics widely view Hayworth as an actress who took a major part in boosting the role of the leading lady in cinema. Her legacy in Hollywood was to pull female characters out of obscurity and supporting roles into a more dominant screen presence.
EXTRA-CONNECTIONS: She acted with Spencer <acted with> Tracy*
Hayworth was a lifelong Democrat who was an active member of the Hollywood Democratic Committee and was active in the campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the 1944 presidential election.
Hayworth was a Catholic whose marriage to Prince Aly Khan was deemed "illicit" by Pope Pius XII.
Hayworth's name can be heard on the Madonna hit from 1990 "Vogue", among other artists from classical Hollywood cinema.
The film The Shawshank Redemption was adapted from a Stephen King short story, "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption." A poster of Rita Hayworth hides a hole in a jail cell wall in the novella, which was used for the first third of the film, then changed to a poster of Marilyn Monroe for the middle third, then Raquel Welch for the last third. In the film, there is a scene where the prison movie night shows Rita Hayworth's film Gilda.
ONELINER: Rita Hayward, 1940’s Hollywood “Love Goddess”
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
"Rita Hayworth." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2004.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 17 Feb. 2004.
American National Biography.