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Rita
Hayworth
Hurrell
Reprint
Glamour Girl
Rita
Hayworth was
born Margarita Carmen Cansino, the
daughter of Eduardo Cansino (Sr.)
and Volga Haworth (sic) in
Brooklyn, New York. She was
trained as a
dancer from childhood, and was on
stage by the age of six as a
member
of The Cansinos, a famous family
of Roma Gitano Spanish dancers
working
in vaudeville. At age sixteen Rita
attracted the attention of film
producers as part of "The Dancing
Cansinos" and was signed by Fox
Studios in 1935. After her option
was not renewed by Fox, Rita
freelanced at minor film studios
before signing with Columbia
Pictures
in 1937.
Rita's
metamorphosis
began after a name change from
Rita Cansino to Rita Hayworth and
extensive painful electrolysis to
raise her hairline. After two more
years of minor roles she gave an
impressive performance in Howard
Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings
(1939) as part of an ensemble cast
headed
by Cary Grant . Her sensitive
portrayal of a disillusioned wife
sparked
the interest of other studios.
Between assignments at Columbia
Pictures
she was borrowed by Metro Goldwyn
Mayer for George Cukor's Susan and
God (1940) with Joan Crawford and
Warner Brothers for Raoul Walsh's
The
Strawberry Blonde (1941) with
James Cagney.
While
on loan to Fox
Studios for Rouben Mamoulian's
Blood and Sand (1941) starring
Tyrone
Power, Rita achieved stardom with
her sizzling performance as the
amoral and seductive Doña
Sol des Muire. This Technicolor
film
forever branded her as one of
Hollywood's most beautiful
redheads.
Ironically, Carole Landis was the
original choice for the role but
was
replaced by Rita Hayworth prior to
filming because she refused to dye
her blonde hair red. Fox then
borrowed Rita from Columbia and
dyed her
raven hair auburn which soon
became Hayworth's best remembered
feature.
Her stardom was solidified when
she made the cover of Time
Magazine as
Fred Astaire's new dancing partner
in You'll Never Get Rich (1941).
Rita
Hayworth Pinup from WWII
The "love
goddess" image was cemented with
Bob Landry's 1941 Life magazine
photograph of her (kneeling on a
bed in a silk and lace
nightgown),
which caused a sensation and
became (at over five million
copies) one
of the most requested wartime
pinups. During World War II she
ranked
with Betty Grable, Dorothy
Lamour, Hedy Lamarr, and Lana
Turner as the
pinup girls most popular with
servicemen. Rita would also
become
Columbia's biggest star of the
1940s, under the watchful eye of
studio
chief Harry Cohn, who recognized
her value. After she made Tales
of
Manhattan (1942) at Twentieth
Century Fox opposite Charles
Boyer, Cohn
would not allow Hayworth to be
loaned out to other studios.
Hayworth's
well-known
films include the musicals that
made her famous: You'll
Never Get Rich (1941) and You
Were Never Lovelier (1942) (both
with
Fred Astaire, who wrote in his
autobiography that Rita "danced
with
trained perfection and
individuality"), My Gal Sal
(1942) with Victor
Mature, and her best known
musical, Cover Girl (1944) with
Gene Kelly.
Although her singing voice was
dubbed in her movies, Rita was
one of
Hollywood's best dancers, imbued
with power, precision,
tremendous
enthusiasm, and an unearthly
grace. 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 notable in Gilda (1946), a
black-and-white film noir
directed by Charles Vidor, which
encountered
some difficulty with censors.
This role — in which Hayworth in
black
satin performed a legendary
one-glove striptease — made her
into a
cultural icon as the ultimate
femme fatale. Alluding to her
bombshell
status, in 1946 her likeness was
placed on the first nuclear bomb
to be
tested after World War II at
Bikini Atoll in the Marshall
Islands, as
part of Operation Crossroads.
This
signature mounted with
Hurrell picture ready to
hand acid free in non
glare glass
Hayworth performed one of her
best remembered dance routines,
the samba
from 1945's Tonight and Every
Night, while pregnant with her
first
child, Rebecca Welles. Hayworth
was also the first dancer to
partner
both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly
on film - the others being Judy
Garland, Cyd Charisse, Vera
Ellen, and Leslie Caron.
Hayworth
gave one of
her most acclaimed performances
in Orson Welles' The Lady from
Shanghai
(1948), though it failed at the
box office. The failure was in
part
attributed to the fact that
director/co-star Welles had
Hayworth's
famous red locks cut off and the
rest dyed blonde for her role.
This
was done without Harry Cohn's
knowledge or approval who was
furious
over the change. Her next film,
The Loves of Carmen (1948) with
Glenn
Ford, was the first film
co-produced by Columbia and
Rita'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 of her
subsequent films until 1955,
when Hayworth dissolved
Beckworth to pay
off debts she owed to Columbia.
Marriage
to Prince Aly Khan, and later
career
Rita left her
film career in 1948 to marry
Prince Aly Khan, the heir to the
Aga Khan
III, leader of Shia Ismaili
Muslims. The couple moved to
Europe,
causing a media frenzy. Joseph
L. Mankiewicz, in writing and
directing
1954's The Barefoot Contessa,
was said to have based his title
character, Maria Vargas (played
on film by Ava Gardner), on
Hayworth's
life and her marriage to Khan.
Wooden
Frame brushed silver and
black
mounted with Hurrell Photo
and Signature
18 x 21 "
After the marriage collapsed in
1951, Hayworth returned to
America with
great fanfare to film a string
of hit films: Affair in Trinidad
(1952)
with favorite costar Glenn Ford,
Salome (1953) with Charles
Laughton
and Stewart Granger, and Miss
Sadie Thompson (1953) with Jose
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. In 1957, after
making Fire
Down Below with Robert Mitchum
and Jack Lemmon, and her last
musical
Pal Joey with Frank Sinatra and
Kim Novak, Rita finally left
Columbia.
She got good reviews for her
acting in such films as Separate
Tables
(1958) with Burt Lancaster and
The Story on Page One (1960)
with
Anthony Franciosa, and continued
working throughout the 1960s.
Hayworth
made her last film, The Wrath of
God , in 1972.
Personal
life
Rita Hayworth
liked horses and Thoroughbred
horse racing, and became a
member of the
Del Mar Thoroughbred Club. Her
husband Prince Aly Kahn and his
family
were heavily involved in horse
racing and Hayworth's filly
Double Rose
won several races in France and
notably finished second in the
1949
Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. [1]
Naturally
shy and
reclusive, Hayworth was the
antithesis of the characters she
played.
She once complained "Men go to
bed with Gilda, but they wake up
with
me". She was close to her
frequent co-star and next-door
neighbour
Glenn Ford.
According
to Barbara
Leaming's biography on Hayworth,
If This Was Happiness, her
relationships with men were
often difficult due to the
physical, sexual
and emotional abuse she endured
from her father at a young age.
These
revelations were made during
interviews with Orson Welles in
later
years. She confided in him about
the incest in particular, as
well as
several beatings. At one point
in the biography Welles recalls
that
when Cansino tried to visit he
would always have to throw him
out. "He
was a terrible man," Welles
recalls. "And she really hated
him. She
couldn't deal with him at all."
However, the fact that Rita
remained
close to her father, and even
hired him as choreographer for
her film
"The Loves of Carmen", would
seem to contradict this.
Hayworth
was married
five times: first to Edward C.
Judson (1937-1943), followed by
actor-director Orson Welles
(1943-1948, one daughter Rebecca
Welles),
to Prince Aly Khan (1949-1953,
one daughter Princess Yasmin Aga
Khan),
then to actor-singer Dick Haymes
(1953-1955), and finally to
director
James Hill (1958-1961). She also
had a nephew named Richard
Cansino,
who is a voice actor in anime
and video games; he has done
most of his
work under the name "Richard
Hayworth".
.
Rita
Hayworth in 1977.
After about
1960, Hayworth suffered from
extremely early onset of
Alzheimer's
disease, which was not diagnosed
until 1980. She continued to act
in
films until the early-1970s and
made a well-publicized
appearance on
The Carol Burnett Show near the
end of her career. In 1977,
Hayworth
was the recipient of the
National Screen Heritage Award
(see above
photo). Lynda Carter starred in
a 1983 biopic of her life. She
lived in
an apartment at the San Remo in
New York City.
Following
her death
from Alzheimer's in 1987 at age
68, she was interred in the Holy
Cross
Cemetery in Culver City,
California; location: Grotto,
Lot 196, Grave 6
(right of main sidewalk, near
the curb). Her marker includes
the
inscription ""To yesterday's
companionship and tomorrow's
reunion."
One
of the major
fundraisers for the Alzheimer's
Association is the annual Rita
Hayworth
Gala, which is held in New York
City and Chicago. Hayworth’s
daughter,
Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, has
been the hostess for these
events, which
since 1985 have raised more than
$42 million for the Association.
Rita
Hayworth
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