Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino; October 17, 1918 – May 14, 1987) was an American actress, dancer, and pin-up girl. She achieved fame in the 1940s as one of the top stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and appeared in 61 films over 38 years. The press nicknamed her "The Love Goddess" during the peak of her fame in the 1940s. She was the second favorite pin-up girl for GIs during World War II, after Betty Grable.

Hayworth is widely known for her performance in the 1946 film Gilda, opposite Glenn Ford, in which she played the femme fatale in her first major dramatic role. She is also known for her performances in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), The Strawberry Blonde (1941), Blood and Sand (1941), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Pal Joey (1957), and Separate Tables (1958). Fred Astaire, with whom she made two films, You'll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942), once called her his favorite dance partner. She also starred in the Technicolor musical Cover Girl (1944), with Gene Kelly. She is listed as one of the top 25 female motion picture stars of all time in the American Film Institute's survey AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Hayworth received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1645 Vine Street in 1960.

In 1980, Hayworth was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, which contributed to her death in 1987 at age 68. The public disclosure and discussion of her illness drew attention to Alzheimer's and helped increase public and private funding for research into the disease.

Hayworth was born as Margarita Carmen Cansino in Manhattan, New York City, the eldest of three children born to dancer parents. It has been speculated by friends that she was Romani, but this has never been confirmed and she referred to herself as "just another dirty-faced Mexican kid". In academic journals, in an article focused on ethnic represenation in Hollywood, she is described as "Latin" and "Spanish-Irish American". Her Spanish-born father Eduardo Cansino was from Castilleja de la Cuesta, a town near Seville, Spain. Her mother, Volga Hayworth, was of Irish and English descent who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies. The couple married in 1917. They also had two sons. Her maternal uncle Vinton Hayworth was an actor.

Eduardo Cansino wanted his daughter to become a professional dancer, while her mother hoped she would become an actress. Her paternal grandfather, Antonio Cansino, was a renowned classical Spanish dancer. He popularized the bolero, and his dancing school in Madrid was world-famous. Antonio Cansino instructed his granddaughter in her first dance lesson. Hayworth later 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". She said: "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, where she was taught by her uncle Angel Cansino. Before her fifth birthday she was one of the Four Cansinos featured in the Broadway production of The Greenwich Village Follies at the Winter Garden Theatre. In 1926, at the age of eight, she was featured in La Fiesta, a short film for Warner Bros.

In 1927, her father took the family to Hollywood. He believed that dancing could be featured in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio, where he taught such stars as James Cagney and Jean Harlow.

In 1931, Eduardo Cansino partnered with his 12-year-old daughter to form an act called the Dancing Cansinos. Her hair was dyed from brown to black to give her a more mature and "Latin" appearance. Since under California law Margarita was too young to work in nightclubs and bars, her father took her with him to work across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. In the early 1930s, it was a popular tourist spot for people from Los Angeles. Because she was working, Hayworth never graduated from high school, but she completed the ninth grade at Hamilton High in Los Angeles.

During her time at Fox, Hayworth was billed as Rita Cansino and appeared in minor roles, often cast as the exotic foreigner. In late 1934, aged 16, she performed a dance sequence in the Spencer Tracy film Dante's Inferno (1935), and was put under contract in February 1935. She had her first speaking role as an Argentinian girl in Under the Pampas Moon (1935). She played an Egyptian girl in Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935), and a Russian dancer in Paddy O'Day (1935). Sheehan was grooming her for the lead in the 1936 Technicolor film Ramona, hoping to establish her as Fox Film's new Dolores del Río.

By the end of her six-month contract, Fox had merged into 20th Century Fox, with Darryl F. Zanuck serving as the executive producer. Dismissing Sheehan's interest in her and giving Loretta Young the lead in Ramona, Zanuck did not renew Hayworth's contract. Sensing her screen potential, salesman and promoter Edward C. Judson, with whom she would elope in 1937, got freelance work for her in several small-studio films and a part in the Columbia Pictures feature Meet Nero Wolfe (1936). Studio head Harry Cohn signed her to a seven-year contract and tried her out in small roles.

Cohn argued that her image was too Mediterranean, which limited her to being stereotyped in "exotic" roles that were fewer in number. He was heard to say her last name sounded too Spanish. Judson acted on Cohn's advice: Rita Cansino became Rita Hayworth when she adopted her mother's maiden name, to the consternation of her father. Therefore, Cohn argued, people were more likely to regard her as a white American. With Cohn and Judson's encouragement, Hayworth also changed her hair color to ginger red hair and had electrolysis to raise her hairline and broaden the appearance of her forehead.

Hayworth appeared in five minor Columbia pictures and three minor independent movies in 1937. The following year, she appeared in five Columbia B movies. 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.

Cohn began to build up Hayworth in 1940 in features such as Music in My Heart, The Lady in Question, and Angels Over Broadway. That year, she was first featured in a Life magazine cover story. While on loan to Warner Bros., Hayworth appeared as the second female lead in The Strawberry Blonde (1941), opposite James Cagney.

Hayworth had top billing in one of her best-known films, the Technicolor musical Cover Girl, released in 1944. The film established her as Columbia's top star of the 1940s; as a result she was the first of only six women to dance on screen with both Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. "I guess the only jewels of my life", Hayworth said in 1970, "were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire ... And Cover Girl, too".

For three consecutive years, starting in 1944, Hayworth was named one of the top movie box-office attractions in the world. She was adept in ballet, tap, ballroom, and Spanish routines. Cohn continued to showcase Hayworth's dance talents. Columbia featured her in the Technicolor films Tonight and Every Night (1945) with Lee Bowman and Down to Earth (1947) with Larry Parks.

Her sexy, glamorous appeal was most noted in Charles Vidor's Gilda, a 1946 film noir, wherein she co-starred with Glenn Ford, that came to the attention of censors. The role, in which Hayworth wore a black satin dress and performed a one-glove striptease, "Put The Blame On Mame", solidified her popular perception as a femme fatale.

While Gilda was in release, it was widely reported that an atomic bomb that was scheduled to be tested at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean's Marshall Islands would bear an image of Hayworth, a reference to her bombshell status. Although the gesture was undoubtedly meant as a compliment, Hayworth was deeply offended. Orson Welles, then married to Hayworth, recalled her anger in an interview with biographer Barbara Leaming: "Rita used to fly into terrible rages all the time, but the angriest was when she found out that they'd put her on the atom bomb. Rita almost went insane, she was so angry.... She wanted to go to Washington to hold a press conference, but Harry Cohn wouldn't let her because it would be unpatriotic". Welles tried to persuade Hayworth that the whole business was not a publicity stunt on Cohn's part, that it was simply homage to her from the flight crew.

On June 30, 1946, broadcast of Orson Welles Commentaries, Welles said of the imminent test, "I want my daughter to be able to tell her daughter that grandmother's picture was on the last atom bomb ever to explode".

In 1948, at the height of her fame, Hayworth met Aly Khan. They were married on May 27, 1949. Hayworth left Hollywood and sailed for France, breaking her contract with Columbia. An Ismaili Muslim suggested that Rita take the name Rehmat Khanum, meaning "Lady of the Blessings of the Almighty".

In 1951, Columbia alleged it had $800,000 invested in properties for her, including the film she had walked out on that year. A 1951 article in the British periodical The People called for a boycott of Hayworth's films:

Hollywood must be told its already tarnished reputation will sink to rock bottom if it restores this reckless woman to a place among its stars.

After the collapse of her marriage to Khan, Hayworth returned to Hollywood to star in the film, Affair in Trinidad (1952), which again paired her with Glenn Ford. Director Vincent Sherman recalled that Hayworth seemed "rather frightened at the approach of doing another picture". She continued to clash with Cohn and was placed on suspension during filming. Hayworth refused to report for work because she objected to the script. In 1970, 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!

Hayworth received good reviews for her performances in Separate Tables (1958), with Burt Lancaster and David Niven; and They Came to Cordura (1959), with Gary Cooper and The Story on Page One (1960). She was intended to be cast in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll with Lancaster but both withdrew after the original play failed on Broadway. She continued working throughout the 1960s. In 1962, her planned Broadway debut in Step on a Crack was cancelled for undisclosed health reasons. In 1964 Circus World was released, in which John Wayne was her co-star and for which she received a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in a dramatic role. The Money Trap (1965) paired her, for the last time, with good friend Glenn Ford.

Even after Harry Cohn had died, Hayworth still resented her treatment by both him and Columbia. She said in a 1968 interview:

I used to have to punch a time clock at Columbia. 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. Hayworth resented that the studio had failed to train her to sing or even to encourage her to learn to sing.

Hayworth continued to act in films until the early 1970s. She made comedic television appearances on Laugh In and The Carol Burnett Show in the 1970s. Her penultimate film was French director Georges Lautner's Road to Salina (1970), starring Mimsy Farmer and Robert Walker Jr. Her last film was The Wrath of God (1972), a western.

At the peak of her fame in the 1940s, Hayworth was a pin-up girl for military servicemen and a fashion ideal for women. At 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) and 120 lb (54 kg), she was tall enough to be a concern for dancing partners such as Fred Astaire. 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 and Pan–Cake makeup.

In 1941, Hayworth said she was the antithesis of the characters she played: "I naturally am very shy ... and I suffer from an inferiority complex". Her provocative role in Gilda, in particular, made people expect her to be what she was not. Hayworth once said, with some bitterness, "Men go to bed with Gilda, but wake up with me". She said, "Basically, I am a good, gentle person, but I am attracted to mean personalities".

Hayworth married and divorced five times in 24 years. She had affairs with several of her leading men, most notably Victor Mature in 1942, during the filming of My Gal Sal.

Hayworth had two daughters and two grandsons, one by each daughter. Her older daughter was the daughter of her second husband, Orson Welles. She had a son who was placed for adoption at birth, by some accounts, at Hayworth's urging, and he is featured in the 2008 documentary film Prodigal Sons.

In 1936, at age 18, Hayworth married Edward C. Judson, an oilman turned promoter who was 23 years older than her. They married in Las Vegas. Judson, who helped launch her acting career, was a shrewd businessman, but domineering. "He helped me with my career", Hayworth conceded after they divorced, adding "and helped himself to my money". She alleged that Judson compelled her to transfer much of her property to him, and she promised to pay him $12,000 under threats that he would do her "great bodily harm".

Hayworth filed for divorce from him on February 24, 1942, with a complaint of cruelty. She 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 had failed to tell Hayworth before they married that he had previously been married twice. When she left him, she had no money.

Hayworth married Orson Welles on September 7, 1943, during the run of The Mercury Wonder Show. None of her colleagues knew about the planned civil wedding ceremony until she announced it the day before. At the ceremony, she wore a beige suit, a 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, who was born on December 17, 1944, and died at the age of 59 on October 17, 2004. They struggled in their marriage, with Hayworth saying that Welles did not want to be tied down:

During the entire period of our marriage, 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.

On November 10, 1947, she was granted a divorce that became final the next year. The divorce was civil and they remained friendly afterwards.

Hayworth had an intermittent, long-term relationship with Glenn Ford that started during the filming of Gilda in 1945 and continued through their numerous marriages. Their relationship is documented in the 2011 biography Glenn Ford: A Life by Ford's son, Peter Ford. Peter writes that Hayworth became pregnant during the filming of The Loves of Carmen and traveled to France to get an abortion. Ford later moved next door to her in Beverly Hills in 1960, and they continued their relationship until the early 1980s.

In 1948, Hayworth left her film career to marry Aly Khan, a son of Sultan Mohammed Shah, Aga Khan III, the leader of the Ismaili community of Shia Islam. They were married on May 27, 1949.

Aly Khan and his family were heavily involved in horse racing, owning and racing horses. Hayworth had no interest in the sport but became a member of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club anyway. Her filly, Double Rose, won several races in France and finished second in the 1949 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

In 1951, while still married to Hayworth, Khan was spotted dancing with the actress Joan Fontaine in the nightclub where he and Hayworth had met. Hayworth threatened to divorce him in Reno, Nevada. In May, Hayworth moved to Nevada to establish legal residence to qualify for a divorce. She stayed at Lake Tahoe with their daughter, saying there was a risk the child would be kidnapped. Hayworth filed for divorce from Khan on September 2, 1951, on the grounds of "extreme cruelty, entirely mental in nature".

Hayworth said she might convert to Islam, but did not. During the custody fight over their daughter, Yasmin Aga Khan, born (1949-12-28)December 28, 1949, Aly said he wanted her to be raised as a Muslim; Hayworth wanted the child to be raised as a Christian. Hayworth rejected his offer of $1 million if she would rear Yasmin as a Muslim from age seven and allow her to go to Europe to visit him for two or three months each year, saying:

Nothing will make me give up Yasmin's chance to live here in America among our precious freedoms and habits. While I respect the Moslem 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.

When Hayworth and Dick Haymes first met, he was married and his singing career was waning. Haymes was desperate for money because two of his ex-wives were suing him for unpaid child support. His financial problems were so bad that when he tried to return to California, he was arrested.

On July 7, 1954, his ex-wife Nora Eddington got a bench warrant for his arrest because he owed her $3,800 in alimony. Less than a week earlier, his ex-wife Joanne Dru also got a bench warrant because she said he owed $4,800 in child support payments for their three children. Hayworth ended up paying most of Haymes's debts.

Haymes was born in Argentina and did not have solid proof of US citizenship. Not long after he met Hayworth, US officials initiated proceedings to have him deported to Argentina for being an illegal alien. 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 married on September 24, 1953, at the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas, and their wedding procession went through the casino.

From the start of their marriage, Haymes owed large amounts of money to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). When Hayworth took time off from attending his comeback performances in Philadelphia, audiences sharply declined. Haymes's $5,000 weekly salary was attached by the IRS to pay a $100,000 bill, and he was unable to pay his pianist. Haymes's ex-wives demanded money while Hayworth publicly bemoaned her own lack of alimony from Aly Khan. At one point, the couple was effectively imprisoned for 24 hours in Manhattan at the Hotel Madison while sheriff's deputies waited outside, threatening to arrest Haymes for outstanding debts.

At the same time, Hayworth was fighting a severe custody battle with Khan, during which she reported death threats against their children. While living in New York, Hayworth sent the children to live with their nanny in Westchester County. They were found and photographed by a reporter from Confidential magazine.

Hayworth began a relationship with film producer James Hill, whom she married on February 2, 1958. He put her in one of her last major films, Separate Tables. This film was popular and highly praised, although The Harvard Lampoon named her the worst actress of 1958 for her performance. On September 1, 1961, Hayworth filed for divorce, alleging extreme mental cruelty. Hill later wrote Rita Hayworth: A Memoir, in which he suggested that their marriage collapsed because he wanted Hayworth to continue making movies while she wanted them both to retire from Hollywood.

In his autobiography, Charlton Heston wrote about Hayworth's marriage to Hill. One night, Heston and his wife Lydia joined the couple for dinner at a restaurant in Spain with the director George Marshall and the actor Rex Harrison, Hayworth's co-star in The Happy Thieves. Heston wrote that the occasion "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 wrote that the others sat stunned, witnesses to a "marital massacre", and, though he was "strongly tempted to slug him" (Hill), he left with his wife after she stood up, almost in tears. Heston wrote, "I'm ashamed of walking away from Miss Hayworth's humiliation. I never saw her again".

Orson Welles noted Hayworth's alcoholism during their marriage, but refused to recognize it. "It certainly imitated alcoholism in every superficial way", he recalled in 1983. "She'd fly into these rages, never at me, never once, always at Harry Cohn or her father or her mother or her brother. She would break all the furniture and she'd get in a car and I'd have to get in the car and try to control her. She'd drive up in the hills suicidally. Terrible, terrible nights. And I just saw this lovely girl destroying herself. I admire Yasmin so much".

Yasmin Aga Khan spoke of her mother's alcoholism:

I remember as a child 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 wanted to retire from acting, but she needed money. At the suggestion of Robert Mitchum, she agreed to film The Wrath of God. The experience exposed her poor health and her worsening mental state. Because she could not remember her lines, her scenes were shot one line at a time. In November, she agreed to complete one more movie, the British film Tales That Witness Madness, but because of her worsening health, she left the set and returned to the United States. She never returned to acting.

In March 1974, both her brothers died within a week of each other, which caused her great sadness and led to heavy drinking. In January 1976, at London's Heathrow Airport, Hayworth was removed from a TWA flight after having an angry outburst while traveling with her agent. The event attracted much publicity; a photograph where she looked disheveled was published in newspapers the next day. Hayworth's alcoholism hid symptoms of what was eventually understood to be Alzheimer's disease.

Hayworth was a lifelong Democrat and an active member of the Hollywood Democratic Committee. She was active in the campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1944 presidential election. In 1968, Hayworth was part of a Hollywood committee that endorsed Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign.

Hayworth was a Catholic whose marriage to Aly Khan was deemed illicit by Pope Pius XII.

Hayworth lapsed into a semicoma in February 1987. She died at age 68 from complications associated with Alzheimer's disease, on May 14, 1987, at her home in Manhattan. President Ronald Reagan, who was one of Hayworth's contemporaries in Hollywood (and who also suffered from Alzheimer's in his final years), issued a statement:

Rita Hayworth was one of our country's most beloved stars. 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.

A funeral service was held on May 18, 1987, at the Church of the Good Shepherd. Pallbearers included actors Ricardo Montalbán, Glenn Ford, Cesar Romero, Anthony Franciosa, choreographer Hermes Pan, and a family friend, Phillip Luchenbill. She was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City. Her headstone includes Yasmin's sentiment: "To yesterday's companionship and tomorrow's reunion".

In 1999, Hayworth was acknowledged as one of the top-25 greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood cinema in the American Film Institute's survey, AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars.

The public disclosure and discussion of Hayworth's illness drew international attention to Alzheimer's disease, which was little known at the time, and it helped to greatly increase federal funding for Alzheimer's research.

The Rita Hayworth Gala, a benefit for the Alzheimer's Association, is held annually in Chicago and New York City. The program was founded in 1985 by Yasmin Aga Khan, in honor of her mother. She is the hostess for the events and is a major sponsor of Alzheimer's disease charities and awareness programs. As of August 2017, a total of more than $72 million had been raised through events in Chicago, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida.

On October 17, 2016, a press release from the Springer Associates Public Relations Agency announced that Rita Hayworth's former manager and friend, Budd Burton Moss, initiated a campaign to solicit the United States Postal Service to issue a commemorative stamp featuring Hayworth. Springer Associates also announced that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would be lobbied in hopes of having an honorary Academy Award issued in memory of Hayworth. The press release added that Hayworth's daughter, Yasmin Aga Khan, the Alzheimer's Association of Greater Los Angeles, and numerous prominent personalities of stage and screen were supporting the Moss campaign. The press release stated the target date for fulfillment of the stamp and Academy Award to be on October 17, 2018, the centennial of Hayworth's birth.