The 32nd annual Alzheimer’s Association Rita Hayworth Gala was held at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday, October 27th, 2015. The event raised more than $2 million for critical Alzheimer’s care, support and research programs.
Willie Geist, co-anchor of The Today Show and Morning Joe emceed the event, which included remarks from Gala General Chair and Founder PrincessYasmin Aga Khan (daughter of Rita Hayworth) and 2015 Gala Chair Daryl Simon.
Simon gave a moving speech about her mother’s battle with the disease,
which inspired her to become involved with the Gala. Actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley poignantly spoke as a part of the program, sharing about her mother’s struggle with dementia.
Michele and Larry Herbert
were honored with the Rita Hayworth Award. Michele spoke powerfully
about her dedication to the cause drawing both laughter and tears from
the crowd. The Herbert’s recently committed a substantial gift to create
the Michele and Larry Herbert Younger-Onset Alzheimer’s in Women Fundas part of the Alzheimer’s Association Women’s Alzheimer’s Research Fund,
which will support critical research into gender vulnerabilities in
Alzheimer’s and why woman are disproportionately affected by this
disease.
Later in the evening, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller introduced B. Smith and Dan Gasby
as they were honored with the Alzheimer’s Association Champions Award
for their dedication to the cause and for B.’s courage in announcing her
own diagnosis. Actor Danny Glover send a personal
video message honoring his close friends B. and Dan for “bravely using
their voices for Alzheimer’s” calling them his champions and heroes.
Model Klara Urbanova donned the stunning purple gown celebrated fashion designer Naeem Khan,
a longtime supporter of the organization, designed as a part of his
Purple Dress Partnership with the Gala, which was auctioned off to
benefit the Alzheimer’s Association.
Notable attendees included: Daryl
Simon (Gala Chair), Princess Yasmin Aga Khan (Gala Founder), Michele
and Larry Herbert (Honorees), B. Smith and Dan Gasby (Honoree), Willie
Geist (Emcee), Brooke Shields, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Ray Kelly,
Hunt Slonem, Patty Smyth McEnroe, Brendan Shanahan, Yaz Hernandez,
Olivia Jordan, Robin Meltzer, Sharon Bush, Nicole Sexton, Jean
Shafiroff, John and Margo Catsimatidis, Somers Farkas, Chele Chiavacci
Farley, Margo Nederlander, Karyn Kornfeld, Carleton Varney, Harold Koda,
Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia and Anne Hearst and Jay McInerney.
The
theme of this year’s Gala, ‘our future is crystal clear’, highlighted
the gala steering committee’s commitment to the vision of a world
without Alzheimer’s disease. Since the inaugural Rita Hayworth Gala over
three decades ago, the New York, Chicago and Palm Beach events have now
raised more than $68 million to support the Alzheimer’s Association.
The mission of the Association is to eliminate Alzheimer’s disease
through the advancement of research, to provide and enhance care and
support for all affected, and to reduce the risk of dementia through
promotion of brain health.
The 32nd annual Alzheimer’s Association Rita Hayworth Gala was held at Cipriani 42nd Street on Tuesday, October 27th, 2015. The event raised more than $2 million for critical Alzheimer’s care, support and research programs.
Willie Geist, co-anchor of The Today Show and Morning Joe emceed the event, which included remarks from Gala General Chair and Founder PrincessYasmin Aga Khan (daughter of Rita Hayworth) and 2015 Gala Chair Daryl Simon.
Simon gave a moving speech about her mother’s battle with the disease,
which inspired her to become involved with the Gala. Actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley poignantly spoke as a part of the program, sharing about her mother’s struggle with dementia.
Michele and Larry Herbert
were honored with the Rita Hayworth Award. Michele spoke powerfully
about her dedication to the cause drawing both laughter and tears from
the crowd. The Herbert’s recently committed a substantial gift to create
the Michele and Larry Herbert Younger-Onset Alzheimer’s in Women Fundas part of the Alzheimer’s Association Women’s Alzheimer’s Research Fund,
which will support critical research into gender vulnerabilities in
Alzheimer’s and why woman are disproportionately affected by this
disease.
Later in the evening, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller introduced B. Smith and Dan Gasby
as they were honored with the Alzheimer’s Association Champions Award
for their dedication to the cause and for B.’s courage in announcing her
own diagnosis. Actor Danny Glover send a personal
video message honoring his close friends B. and Dan for “bravely using
their voices for Alzheimer’s” calling them his champions and heroes.
Model Klara Urbanova donned the stunning purple gown celebrated fashion designer Naeem Khan,
a longtime supporter of the organization, designed as a part of his
Purple Dress Partnership with the Gala, which was auctioned off to
benefit the Alzheimer’s Association.
Notable attendees included: Daryl
Simon (Gala Chair), Princess Yasmin Aga Khan (Gala Founder), Michele
and Larry Herbert (Honorees), B. Smith and Dan Gasby (Honoree), Willie
Geist (Emcee), Brooke Shields, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Ray Kelly,
Hunt Slonem, Patty Smyth McEnroe, Brendan Shanahan, Yaz Hernandez,
Olivia Jordan, Robin Meltzer, Sharon Bush, Nicole Sexton, Jean
Shafiroff, John and Margo Catsimatidis, Somers Farkas, Chele Chiavacci
Farley, Margo Nederlander, Karyn Kornfeld, Carleton Varney, Harold Koda,
Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia and Anne Hearst and Jay McInerney.
The
theme of this year’s Gala, ‘our future is crystal clear’, highlighted
the gala steering committee’s commitment to the vision of a world
without Alzheimer’s disease. Since the inaugural Rita Hayworth Gala over
three decades ago, the New York, Chicago and Palm Beach events have now
raised more than $68 million to support the Alzheimer’s Association.
The mission of the Association is to eliminate Alzheimer’s disease
through the advancement of research, to provide and enhance care and
support for all affected, and to reduce the risk of dementia through
promotion of brain health.
Friday 4 March 2016
20 Things You Didn’t Know About 'The Shawshank Redemption'
Nineteen
ninety-four was a time of runaway white Ford Broncos, physically
assaulted figure skaters, and bad shit going on in Rwanda, or something.
But most importantly, this year-of-years established Zihuatanejo as THE
vacation destination for wrongly accused bankers who go on the lam
after exposing money-laundering schemes conducted by the very prison
they just broke out of.
Normally we’d preface that with “spoiler alert” but, frankly, if you haven’t seen The Shawshank Redemption by
now, than you’re already beyond help. The Warner Bros. classic, based
on a Stephen King short story, was adapted into a script by first-time
director Frank Darabont, and starred Tim Robbins as the aforementioned
bad-luck accountant, Morgan Freeman as a black man named Red, and Bob
Gunton as one seriously “obtuse” warden. While the film’s initial box
office was disappointing, it went on to find huge success in video
rentals and ad nauseum TNT broadcasts. In this, the 20th anniversary of
the greatest guy flick to ever feature so few women, it’s time to find
out just how well-versed you are on all things Andy…
1)
In the book, Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding was a ginger-haired, middle-aged
Mick. Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman were all considered
for the role that went to Morgan Freeman. Darabont alluded to the
unusual casting choice by having Red jokingly reply to Andy’s inquiry
about his nickname with the line, “Maybe it’s because I’m Irish.”
Happily, they opted to not follow the quote with audio of a studio audience laughing.
2) Steven Spielberg praised Shawshank
by telling Darabont that the film was a "a chewing-gum movie—if you
step on it, it sticks to your shoe.” (It’s crap like that, that makes us
sometimes feel like Steve’s massively overrated.)
3) The film was adapted from the Stephen King short story Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption. The compilation also brought the Nazi-riffic Apt Pupil and leach-tastic The Body (aka Stand By Me) to the silver screen. Rob Reiner famously directed the latter while trying and failing to do the same with Shawshank.
4)
Two women had speaking roles in the film: One chick complains about
Brook’s skills as a grocery clerk, and another dame assists Andy at a
bank.
5)
The book mentions that Andy smuggled $100 into Shawshank via his, yet
to be tapped, rectum; which is how he pays Red the $10 for the rock
hammer.
6) The film’s title was released in Israel as Walls Of Hope. Mostly because Oye, This Cell Is Drafty had already been used for Escape From Alcatraz, years before.
7)
Stroh’s was the brand of beer Red and the gang drank on the roof during
the day Andy cleverly got them all off work duty—which proves the old
adage “prison guards are cheap.”
8) Tom Hanks turned down the role of Andy Dufresne because he’d already committed to Forrest Gump—proving, yet again, that he’s less a “national treasure” and more “Hollywood’s biggest monster.”
9)
Although set in Maine, (mostly because Stephen King is unaware that any
other state exists) the prison that doubled for Shawshank is in Mansfield, Ohio.
The state reformatory was abandoned, and scheduled for demolition once
the film was finished. Happily it was successfully saved and became a
tourist attraction that holds the uprooted oak tree where Andy buried
his letter to Red, as well as his escape tunnel. As for where Andy’s
unyielding belief in the human spirit now resides? That’s inside all of
us, friend.
10) The film was released in Taiwan as 1995: Fantastic—which makes sense, because it came out a year later than ’94 in that particular country. Actually, no… it still doesn’t make sense.
11) Darabont credited multiple viewings of Goodfellas as inspiration for using narration to illustrate the passage of time.
12) The mugshot of a young Red, attached to his parole papers, was actually a photo of Morgan Freeman’s son Alfonso.
13) The role of Tommy Williams—which was played by Gil Bellows of, uh… Gil Bellows fame— was originally intended for Brad Pitt.
Monday 19 October 2015
Rita Hayworth, 'Love Goddess' of '40s, Dies
Rita Hayworth, a shy Spanish dancer who was transformed into the titian-haired movie "love goddess" of the 1940s only to rebel against the studio system that created her, has died in New York City, it was reported Friday.
Miss Hayworth, a victim of Alzheimer's disease that robbed her of speech and memory during the last years of her life, died Thursday night at the home of Princess Yasmin Khan Embiricos, her daughter from her storybook marriage to Prince Aly Khan.
Yasmin said her mother was 69 but film biographies listed her age as 68.
The death came just three days after the second annual "Rita Hayworth Gala," a glittering, black-tie affair at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel hosted by her daughter that raised $1.3 million for the Alzheimer's Disease Society.
Monday Services Set
Funeral services were scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday at the Roman Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Burial will follow at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.
Miss Hayworth's glamour was such that during World War II she was second only to Betty Grable as the GIs' favorite pinup. Columnists wrote that she was the woman Technicolor was invented for. She was on the cover of Life magazine four times, a record equalled only by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and her picture was pasted on the first atomic bomb exploded in peacetime, on Bikini atoll in 1946.
By 1949, Miss Hayworth was one of Hollywood's highest-paid actresses--earning more than $375,000 a year. She was also a real-life princess, the wife of Aly Khan, whose father was the spiritual leader of 9 million Ismaili Muslims.
But only two years later, her marriage in shambles, she was alone with two children and running out of money. In order to travel with her husband, she had defied demands by Columbia studios boss Harry Cohn that she report for work. He suspended her and sued for breach of contract.
"I was really in deep slavery," she said later of her tenure at Columbia, adding that she was suspended so many times for refusing roles that she lost count. She insisted that Cohn had her dressing room bugged and made her punch a time clock even though she was his biggest star. But Cohn said he only wanted her to do her job.
Miss Hayworth professed to despise the roles she was assigned there--the vivacious beauty and saucy seductress. And it was not until she left Columbia and began to age that she gained recognition from critics as a serious actress in such independent films as "Separate Tables" in 1958, in which she was praised for her sensitive portrayal of a tormenting wife, and "They Came to Cordura," a 1959 drama that cast her as a prisoner being transported across the desert.
37-Year Career
During a 37-year career, she made 61 films--about half of them before she achieved stardom in 1941 in the light musical, "You'll Never Get Rich," with Fred Astaire. They included "Blood and Sand," "Tales of Manhattan," "Cover Girl," "Gilda" (the seductive siren who became her film signature), "The Lady from Shanghai," "Salome," "Miss Sadie Thompson," "Pal Joey," "The Story on Page One" and "The Money Trap." Her last film was "The Wrath of God" in 1972.
With an exuberant beauty that came alive before the cameras, Miss Hayworth was ideal for the Hollywood system that manufactured stars through grooming, publicity and carefully planned buildups.
"She was a real creature of the movies, possessing the quality of involving the audience in her problem, like all the greatest stars," director George Cukor once said of Miss Hayworth.
Rouben Mamoulian, her director in "Blood and Sand," once said: "She made you believe in both her beauty and her ability whenever she was on the screen."
Miss Hayworth had five husbands, including Orson Welles, singer Dick Haymes and Khan. She said her marriages failed because no man would give her what she really wanted--a quiet home life. She once explained the problem by saying, "Every man I knew had fallen in love with Gilda and wakened with me."
Feeling Imprisoned
In the 1960s, interviewers painted a picture of Miss Hayworth as a sporadically employed movie star, living in her Beverly Hills mansion and feeling imprisoned by the image Hollywood had given her. "I'm an actress," she told one reporter. "I have depth. I have feeling. But they don't care. All they want is an image."
Stardom could never mask the nervous insecurity that followed Miss Hayworth all of her life. Early in her career, she began having a drink to relax before her scenes and by the late 1970s, reports of her supposed alcoholism were widespread.
Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Rita Hayworth, Tragic Princess
Readers, Rita Hayworth had something. And by something, I mean everything. This little girl from Brooklyn, exploited at the hands of her domineering father, forced to change her name and her hairline to get rid of her pesky Latinness, had the sort of beauty and verve that unite to form charisma. She’s gorgeous, but so are many classic Hollywood stars. What sets her apart is the alacrity in her eyes, the persistent bounce in her step — when you see her onscreen, it seems like everyone else is just sleepwalking.
But Hayworth’s story is also a tragic one: in addition to undergoing a very public and very graphic (and very literal) erasure of her heritage, she also endured mental abuse and manipulation at the hands of multiple men. But Hayworth also managed to galavant across the globe in the 1940s with a man who was not her husband — at the exact time when Ingrid Bergman was busy being denounced on the Senate floor as an “instrument of evil” for doing the same thing. And Hayworth’s man was not only not her husband — he wasn’t even Christian! HE WAS A ‘MOSLEM’! FROM ARABIA! (I am not making these words up — they were in the gossip columns.)
But because this man was a prince, and Hayworth would (hopefully, fingers crossed, please don’t show as pregnant before this happens) be made a princess, it was somehow forgivable. She had endured a life of transformation and heartbreak, all of it very much in the public eye, and so there were things that audiences wanted for her — happiness, a family, princess-dom — that made them willing to forgive pesky technicalities. But the lustre of royalty did not last, and Hayworth moved on: to a string of moderate hits, to more husbands, to relative obscurity.
But for a brief period in the late ‘40s, she was the closest thing America had to a Cinderella.
Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, in Brooklyn, to two showbiz parents. Her father, Eduardo, was a Spanish dancer; her mother, Volga, had been a Ziegfield girl. (Ziegfield Girl = Chorus Girl. Think ‘30s version of a Pussycat Doll.) Margarita’s grandfather had been a HUGE DEAL in Spanish dancing — he brought the bolero to American audiences — and it was he who gave Hayworth her first dance lesson at age three.
From then on, Hayworth was in constant dance training. Her family moved to Hollywood when she was eight, and her father began giving personal lessons to big studio stars. But the Depression tightened belts both in and outside of Hollywood, and dance instruction was one of the first luxuries to go. But Eduardo Cansino had a plan: he would make Rita his dance partner, and they could go dance in Tijuana clubs as “The Dancing Cansinos.” Nevermind that this arrangement suggested Rita to be her father’s wife — the pair was a HUGE HIT. And it was in one of these Tijuana nightclubs that Hayworth was spotted by a talent scout for Fox Studios, who quickly signed her, under the name Rita Consuelo, to a six-month contract.
But Consuelo was nothing special, at least not yet. She appeared in very small parts in a number of very small films, and at the end of her six month contract, Fox unceremoniously let her go. At all of 18, she eloped to Vegas with Edward Judson, a businessman-turned-talent-manager as old as her father. Judson helped land Consuelo a string of bit parts, eventually winning her a screen test with Columbia Pictures in 1937. Columbia signed her to a seven-year contract, but Consuelo spent her first months with the studio typecast as sultry, dancing (bit-part) Latinas. Columbia wanted a new star — someone to rival MGM’s glamour. But to turn Cansino into such a star, drastic measures were apparently necessary.
How do you de-Latinize a beautiful woman? Take away her widow’s peak. And get rid of her black hair. Cansino went into seclusion, underwent extensive hairline electrolysis, dyed her hair flaming red, and re-emerged as Rita Hayworth.
And so this woman:
Became this one:
What’s most remarkable about this transformation isn’t how blatantly racist it is. Rather, it’s that it wasn’t a secret. Columbia didn’t try to cover up what it was doing to its star; rather, they publicized the shit out of it.
As Adrienne McLean explains in Being Rita Hayworth (if you have any interest in Hayworth, or in star transformation in general, this book is an absolute must), Columbia collaborated with various publications to create an image for Hayworth as a Spanish dancer working hard to “overcome her type,” namely, that of a Spanish dancer. One fan magazine has Hayworth explaining “That’s one reason I changed my name… I didn’t want to be known only as a dancer.” She dieted, took voice lessons, dyed her hair, learned to act, and made a decision to always dress glamorously at all times. It’s as if Vanessa from Gossip Girl suddenly became a Blair/Serena hybrid.
Glamorous at all times FOR REAL.
Hayworth appeared, in short order, on the cover of both Look and Life, and became known for her “love” for the press — “Katherine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, and Margaret Sullavan may appear in dungarees and polo coat and scowl at the camera boys as though they were boogey men, but not Rita. She gives them their money’s worth,” according to one fan magazine. More likely: Columbia told her to ham it up whenever possible because the studio, always a “minor” compared to the Big Five (MGM, Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros, RKO), needed a glamour girl.
By 1940, there were 3,800 stories and 12,000 pictures of Hayworth in circulation. Girl wasvisible. Appearances in gradually more high-profile films — with Cary Grant and Jean Arthur in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), with Joan Crawford in Susan and God (1940), and a big hit in Strawberry Blonde with James Cagney and Olivia De Havilland (1941) — made it clear: Hayworth was a true star.
Throughout this period, Columbia labored to make it clear that Hayworth was not a dancer, because the Rita who danced was exotic, black-haired, doomed to type-casting, and a failure as a star.
But in 1941, Columbia loaned Hayworth to Fox for the role of Doña Sol des Muire, a “sultry Spanish socialite” who seduces bullfighter Tyrone Power in Blood and Sand. SPANISH HERITAGE COMES IN HANDY WHEN YOU NEED IT! But unlike her other films, in which Hayworth played the Spanish dancing lady because that was the only thing shecould play, her role in Blood and Sand was sold in the spirit of masquerade. In other words, Hayworth showed that she could act Spanish, even though she was now thoroughly Anglicized.
The film was a smash, and Columbia cast her in a series of happy happy dancey dancey films with the master of the happy dancey films, Fred Astaire.
You’ll Never Get Rich and You Were Never Lovelier were ready-made hits, and Astaire, ever the exacting secret asshole, admitted that Hayworth was “a natural.” “She’s constantly surprising me,” he averred. “Nothing is too difficult for her. She watches, goes home, practices up, and the next day she’s got it perfect.” I mean look at this clip (fastforward to about 1:25; make sure you stick with it to the end).
Here’s what you realize:
1. You want a dress that twirls exactly like that.
2. Fred Astaire was really quite skinny.
3. The dancing was filmed with four continuous shots — not the rapid cut and pasting of current dance films, which allow dancers to mess up and get edited to look good. Astaire and Hayworth had to dance perfectly — and uninterrupted — for minutes at a time. It’s a marvel to behold.
4. Rita was a really good wobble dancer.
1. You want a dress that twirls exactly like that.
2. Fred Astaire was really quite skinny.
3. The dancing was filmed with four continuous shots — not the rapid cut and pasting of current dance films, which allow dancers to mess up and get edited to look good. Astaire and Hayworth had to dance perfectly — and uninterrupted — for minutes at a time. It’s a marvel to behold.
4. Rita was a really good wobble dancer.
(If you’re in the mood for something even sassier, tap-dance wise, go spend some time here.)
Hayworth may have lacked the slick grace of Astaire’s longtime partner Ginger Rogers, but what she lacked in polish she made up for in verve. There’s something about the way she flings her appendages that just screams ALIVE.
During this period, Hayworth became one of the most popular pin-ups for soldiers during World War II. To put it more bluntly: hundreds of thousands of soldiers regularly used her photo for masturbatory purposes between the years of 1941 and 1945. I mean, that’s what a war pin-up is, and we might as well say it: government-sponsored soft porn, distributed en masse to relieve sexual tension.
Remember how Morgan Freeman gave Tim Robbins Hayworth’s poster in Shawshank Redemption? There’s a Wikipedia entry entitled “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.” That’s how crucial she was to so many people’s narratives in the 1940s. And I mean, holy shit, look at the photo — it’s more than looking good in negligee, which she obviously does. It’s all about the expression on her face, a cross between a question and an invitation. And it’s that face — that ability to make each person who saw it seem personally invited — that differentiates the lingerie models from the stars, and that separates, say, Megan Fox sucking on her finger from Rita Hayworth in a coy kneel.
After years of enduring mental abuse and threats of physical violence from her first husband, Hayworth walked out on him in 1942, filing divorce on grounds of cruelty. He had stolen all of her money, but she was free. At least for a year, at which point she married Orson Welles, known, at this point, for his arrogance and brilliance.
The wedding was low-key — Hayworth wore a blouse and skirt — and surprised most of their friends. A suitable number of months later, Hayworth and Welles had a baby and posed for a lot of ridiculously cute photos.
I mean, what’s going on here?
Is Welles the bull to Hayworth’s matador? Or is Welles just f-ing crazy? It’s unclear, but what seemed clear, at least to the reading public, was that Hayworth had found happiness. Welles might have been a megalomaniac (and The Magnificent Ambersons,released the year before the marriage, had incited a high profile meltdown between Welles and his studio) but he had provided Hayworth with the necessary pieces for domestic bliss: husband, baby, home.
Between 1944 and 1947, Hayworth became one of the most valuable stars in Hollywood. She starred with Gene Kelly in Cover Girl and appeared in full Technicolor in Tonight and Every Night, which showcased Hayworth samba-ing in this obvious inspiration for the Princess Leia get-up.
And then there was Gilda. The plot for this film noir is somewhat throwaway, but it shows Hayworth at the height of her hotness powers, and I would gladly watch the other 109 minutes of the film in order to see these 11 seconds, immortalized all over the internet (and in my Twitter avatar):
Watch it on mute if you have to — just watch it. Because that fling of the hair, that raise of the eyebrows — “Gilda, are you decent?”
I DIE. I die a thousand Classic Hollywood beautiful deaths. There’s a pantheon of perfect moments in cinema, and this moment resides there, right between the moment when Paul Henreid lights Bette Davis’ cigarette in Now, Voyager and Claudette Colbert hikes up her skirt on the side of the road in It Happened One Night. (Feel free to add your own classic moments in the comments, but realize that this one wins by default.)
The film doesn’t need anything else but that moment, but it one-ups itself with Hayworth singing “Put the Blame on Mame.” TWICE.
The primary purpose of these performances is to highlight Hayworth’s ability to wear the hell out of a strapless dress. I MEAN REALLY. (When asked what held up her dress during the scene, Hayworth’s reply: “Two things.”) But the song’s secondary purpose is more hidden: the “Mame” of the song is responsible for three of America’s most tragic disasters, and she essentially sparked each catastrophe vis-a-vis a love affair. Naturally, Hayworth’s character in Gilda, like Hayworth herself, destroys things — including herself — with her love. She doesn’t mean to; it just happens. Later that year, “Gilda” was inscribed on the first nuclear bomb tests post World War II in the Bikini Atoll. I am not making this up.
In 1947, Welles directed and co-starred with Hayworth in The Lady of Shanghai, marking the effective disintegration of the couple’s marriage. In hindsight, the film functions as a huge “fuck you”: Welles made Hayworth cut her trademark auburn curls and dyed what remained an off-putting platinum blonde. The film took away Hayworth’s trademark skills — her ability to dance, to make her hair bounce, to move — that had typified her performances to that point. Welles was essentially renovating her image, with or without her consent.
The head of Columbia Studios, Harry Cohn, was furious. And rightly so: the film was a stink bomb, in part because it so clearly deviated from what had endeared Hayworth to audiences. Today, we call such a massive physical transformation an “Oscar Turn,” but back then, it was an audience betrayal. To many, it seemed as if Welles was punishing Hayworth for her classic Hollywood-ness, attempting to exclude her from the mainstream in the same way that he had exiled himself.
Welles had become insufferable. Hayworth filed for divorce soon thereafter, explaining “I can’t take his genius any more.” Rita, I know the feeling. I can only take Welles in two-hour sections, so I can only imagine what it must have been like to spend the evening — let alone five years — at his side. Was he constantly thinking in terms of allegory? Were there sleds all over the house? Did he make you do radio plays in the basement with elaborate side effects?
And although their divorce was still pending, the third act of Hayworth’s life had already begun. Her next film, The Loves of Carmen, was a return to form, with Hayworth playing Carmen to Glenn Ford’s Don Juan. It’s somewhat ridiculous, but audiences flocked to it the same way they flocked to Julia Robert’s glorious return to form in My Best Friend’s Wedding after years of Mary Reilly against-type-ness.
How did they make her hair grow so fast?
And just as Carmen hit theaters, Hayworth was all over the gossip columns with a super hot new romance. In July of 1948, old biddie gossip columnist Elsa Maxwell threw a party on the French Riveria, at which she introduced Hayworth to Prince Aly Khan, son of Aga Khan, the ruler of “the world’s Ishamili Muslims.” Dude was bars-of-gold rich, known as one of the world’s “great lovers,” and conveniently separated (if not yet divorced) from his wife/the mother of his two sons. The two meet, totally make out, and start spending a lot of time to together in very public places, but insist nothing’s going on.
But let’s refresh. Here’s what we have:
1. One very wealthy prince, arguably available.
2. One very beautiful actress, arguably the most popular star in the world, and arguably available.
2. One very beautiful actress, arguably the most popular star in the world, and arguably available.
UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM . . . something was obviously going on.
After a few months of promoting her films up and down the Riveria, Hayworth returned to Hollywood. She found a script waiting for her, decided it sucked, and refused to report to set. Columbia put her on suspension, and she fled to Mexico, where BIG SURPRISE a Prince just happened to be waiting.
Naturally the gossip press went full-bore crazytime. And here’s where things get really awesome: the totally-not-a-couple holds a joint press conference in Mexico to staunch rumors of their relationship. The proof? They were both still married! They were totally just giving each other back rubs in Mexico!
I imagine this went over about as well as Brad Pitt’s avowals that he and Angelina weretotally not having hot and heavy sex when he went to visit her in Africa. But then photos of Pitt making sand castles with Maddox on the African coast magically appeared, and the non-cover was blown.
For Hayworth and Khan, denial did very little. It was clear that the two, still legally married to others, were intimate. The press began to attack. Even when Hayworth’s divorce became final and Khan announced their intention to marry as soon as he was free, religious groups were threatening boycotts. Recall that this was early 1949 — just months later, Ingrid Bergman would be denounced on the senate floor for her affair with Roberto Rossellini.
But before any of the Bergman mess took place, things fell into place for Hayworth and her prince. Khan’s wife finalized the divorce, and the couple had a very royal wedding in May.
The Prince and Well-Bonneted Princess.
Fast forward a few months, and OH BIG SURPRISE, Hayworth is pregnant! Baby Khan is born seven months after the wedding date — a “preemie” that somehow looks FULLY GROWN! Amazing! But all rumors are quashed by the lovely fact that this baby, daughter of Rita Hayworth, half sister to the spawn of Orson Welles, just happens to be a princess.
As has proven true with so many gossip cases, the public verdict hinged on timing. Were Hayworth and Khan having an extramarital affair? Okay, maybe. But did they get married really soon and make it all pretty and bombastic and take pictures for the gossip magazines? YES! YES THEY DID! Was their child conceived before they were married? Most likely, yes. But they did get married, and the baby was born in wedlock, making the baby an authentic (not-exactly-totally-white, okay, fine, we’ll deal with it) princess.
But it wasn’t just the princess dom that made the public forgive Hayworth. She had gone through so much — manipulative parents, manipulative husbands, manipulative studios — and done it all in the eyes of the gossip-reading public. If you watched movies and knew anything about stars in the late ‘40s, you knew that Rita Hayworth had suffered her fair share. Just like today’s readers yearn for Jen Aniston to find love, the readers of yore hoped that Hayworth, who really just wanted a traditional romance and domestic happiness, to find the idyll she sought. Sure, the guy wasn’t white, wasn’t a Christian, and was still married. But he seemed to be offering happiness to someone who seemed to deserve it, which made their transgressions all the more forgivable.
Whether then or today, it’s all about the way a romance is sold, and the way a star’s image is situated. As I mentioned earlier, mere months later, Bergman was decried and essentially banished to Europe — not because the public didn’t like her, but because Bergman had a domestic idyll, and forsook it for a fling with a skinny Italian in sunglasses.
In the end, it’s not about means so much as the end. To extend on my never-ending Pitt-Jolie-Aniston comparison, it doesn’t matter if Brad Pitt cheated on his wife, so long as the woman with whom he cheated essentially turned him into a domestic figure and the father of six children. In the same way, what happened in the lead-up to Hayworth and Khan’s marriage didn’t matter, nor did the specifics of Khan’s princedom. What did matter was that Hayworth seemed to have found happiness.
With her marriage, Hayworth retreated from Hollywood, filing the gossip press with speculation that she would never return to the big screen. And she did stay away, playing the role of the domestic wife, tending to her two daughters and traveling the world. But trouble was brewing, and in 1951, Khan was spotted dancing with Joan Fontaine, aka the star of Rebecca, in a Vegas nightclub. THE NERVE.
Hayworth publicly called for a divorce, established residency in Nevada (which was what you had to do in those days to actually get a divorce), and the marriage finally ended in early 1953. In the meantime, Hayworth returned to the screen with two hits (Salome and Miss Sadie Thompson) each of which exploited her established star image.
Yet mere months after the finalization of her divorce to Khan, she married a clear skeezeball named Dick Haymes. Haymes, a lounge singer whose career was on the decline, was still married to his wife (do you see a pattern here?) and owed tens of thousands in back taxes and child support. God this guy sounds AWESOME.
And then things went into freefall. It almost makes me too sad to talk about it, so I’m just going to type a list of decline:
1. Haymes convinces Hayworth to fight with Columbia, effectively keeping her off the screen for four years. Four years!
2. Aly Khan starts fighting for custody of their daughter, Yasmin. This is obviously a bad scene. Hayworth issues xenophobic statements vowing now to let her daughter grow up out of the United States, Aly Khan wants her to grow up a princess, which, okay, has its merits.
3. With Hayworth off the screen and Haymes’ salary seized by the IRS, the two are too poor even to pay their hotel bills.
4. Hayworth sends her kids to go live with a nanny while things get sorted out.Confidential, the most widely read scandal rag of the time, gets photos of the kids playing in the nanny’s backyard, which just happens to be filled with a few unfortunately placed ash heaps and trash. Does not help Hayworth’s case in the custody battle.
5. Dick[face] hits Hayworth in public at a night club in Los Angeles. A thoroughly humiliated Hayworth leaves him.
6. Hayworth attempts a comeback, appearing in Pal Joey and a few other musicals that mostly just make me cringe, like when you see Old Tom Cruise trying to be Top Gun Tom Cruise. Not because she was old, but because the verve, the very light of her, seemed to have gone out.
7. Hayworth marries Husband #5, who yet again swindles her of most of her money.
After years of decline, poverty forced her to sign on for a B-grade Western with the equally washed up Robert Mitchum. And at 54, decades of alcohol and stress had aged her prematurely. Her memory was failing, and she had to shoot each of her scenes one line at a time. This from the woman who had nailed her performance of “Put the Blame on Mame” on the second take.
The sad truth was that Hayworth was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and would spend the next 20 years gradually losing herself and every memory of her bittersweet life. She was eventually put under the care of her daughter Yasmin, then a grown woman, and spent her final years staring out a window in Central Park West.
I look at pictures and watch footage of Rita Hayworth, and see a resilience and vivacity that could only endure for so long. She was the plaything of her studios and the media, and lived in the imagination of countless men and women around the world. Millions wanted her to find happiness and were willing to forgive any matter of indiscretion in order for her to find it. She searched for it — through studio-shaped images, new names, and a laundry list of husbands — but fame makes many things elusive, especially contentment and peace. When asked how it felt to have everything, she replied, “I haven’t had everything from life. I’ve had too much.”
And I watch that cherished moment in Gilda, or the way she flung her arms and legs in abandon during her in her dance scenes with Astaire, and I see a woman aching to live. Which is why it’s so tragic that a woman so clearly filled with life, in the end, found it so hard to live a full one.
Hayworth, Rita: 1918–1987: Actor, Dancer, Producer
Rita Hayworth: 1918–1987: Actor, dancer, producer
Called "the fiery epitome of screen sensuality," by People magazine, Rita Hayworth became one of America's most popular and famous actresses of the 1940s and beyond, known for her grace, her beauty, and her amazing dancing ability. Born Margarita Cansino on October 17, 1918 in Brooklyn, NY, Hay-worth was part of a family descending from a long line of performers. When she was nine years old and the Vaudevillian scene was breaking up, Hayworth's family moved to Los Angeles. There her parents—Eduardo, a vaudevillian performer, dance instructor, and director, and Volga Haworth, a Ziegfield Follies showgirl—encouraged her to follow in the family line and started her in acting and dancing lessons. Hayworth's father at this time moved from Vaudeville performing to being a dancer and director for several Hollywood movie dance scenes.
While Hayworth was busy learning the family business, she also went to the Carthay School where she had parts in a few school plays, including a stage prologue for the movie Back Street at the Carthay Circle Theater. She then spent one year at Hamilton High before, in ninth grade, her schooling was halted when she became her dad's dancing partner. Called the "Dancing Cansinos," they performed up to 20 times per week. The show traveled throughout Mexico and California until Fox Film Corporation spotted Hayworth in Agua Caliente, Mexico. Because of her grace and beauty she was invited by Fox Films, at age 16, to begin her career in film, acting in B-grade movies. Although her screen debut was with her family in La Fiesta in 1932, her first film by herself was Dante's Inferno. Hayworth was billed on the film as Rita Cansino. The movie wasn't popular, but it brought her to the attention of Fox Film bigwigs and Hayworth was given a year-long contract. For this one year Hayworth held small, ethnic parts in movies such asCharlie Chan in Egypt, 1935, Under the Pampas Moon, 1935, Paddy O'Day, 1935, and Human Cargo,1936. Her contract was not renewed, and Hayworth was forced to take a line of small parts playing Mexican and Indian girls for very little money.
When Hayworth was 18 she married Edward C. Judson, a man who was a car salesman and businessman and soon became Hayworth's manager. Judson is said by the Encyclopedia of World Biography to have transformed Hayworth, changing her from a dark Latin girl into a red-headed sophisticate. Hayworth altered her hairline and eyebrows with electrolysis and changed her name to Rita Hayworth (This was a variation on her mother's maiden name, with the 'y' added to help pronunciation). Her new look brought her speedily into the public eye and garnered her a seven-year contract with Columbia Pictures. After a string of small parts in low-budget movies, Hayworth was finally given a leading role, portraying an unfaithful wife in Only Angels Have Wings, 1939, alongside Cary Grant. After that she was seen in movies such as Strawberry Blonde, 1941, with James Cagney, and Blood and Sand, 1941, with Tyrone Power.
At a Glance . . .
Born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, NY; died on May 14, 1987, in New York, NY; daughter of Eduardo and Volga Haworth Cansino; married: Edward C. Judson, 1936 (divorced, 1943); married Orson Welles, 1943 (divorced, 1948); married Prince Aly Khan, 1949 (divorced, 1951); married Dick Haymes, 1953 (divorced, 1955); married James Hill, 1958 (divorced, 1961): children: Rebecca, Yasmin.
Career: Actress. (as Rita Cansino): A Dancing Cansino, Anna Case with the Dancing Cansinos,1926;Cruz Diablo, 1934; Dante's Inferno, 1935; Paddy O'Day, 1935; Dancing Pirate, 1936; Rebellion,1936; (as Rita Hayworth): Girls Can Play, 1937; The Shadow, 1937; Juvenile Court, 1938; The Renegade Ranger, 1938; Who Killed Gail Preston?, 1938; Only Angels Have Wings, 1939; Angels Over Broadway,1940; The Lady in Question, 1940; Blondie on a Budget, 1940; The Strawberry Blonde, 1941; My Gal Sal,1942; Show Business at War, 1943; Cover Girl, 1944; Tonight and Every Night, 1945; Gilda, 1946; Down to Earth, 1947; The Loves of Carmen, 1948; The Lady from Shanghai, 1948; Champagne Safari, 1952;Miss Sadie Thompson, 1953; Salome, 1953; Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Grows Up, 1954; Fire Down Below, 1957; Pal Joey, 1957; Separate Tables, 1958; The Story on Page One, 1959; The Happy Thieves,1962; Circus World, 1964; The Money Trap, 1965; Poppies Are Also Flowers, 1966; L'Avventuriero, 1967;The Carol Burnett Show, 1967; I Bastardi, 1968; The Naked Zoo, 1971; Road to Salina, 1971; The Wrath of God, 1972; That's Action, 1977. Producer: The Loves of Carmen, 1948; Affair in Trinidad, 1952; Salome,1953; The Happy Thieves, 1962.
Awards: Nominated Golden Globe, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture–Drama for Circus World, 1965.
It was, however, in 1941's You'll Never Get Rich in which Hayworth starred with Fred Astaire, that Hay-worth began her ascent into the heights of stardom. It has even been said that Fred Astaire called Rita Hay-worth his favorite dancing partner, not his more popularly known partner Ginger Rogers. For this part she appeared on the cover of Time magazine and was labeled "The Great American Love Goddess" by Life. The next year she made three hit movies, My Gal Sal,1942, Tales of Manhattan, 1942, and You Were Never Lovelier, 1942, her only other movie with Fred Astaire. Although her career was becoming more and more successful, her marriage was not—she divorced Edward Judson in 1942.
Also in 1942 Hayworth married Orson Welles, the famous actor, director, and screenwriter. With him she had a daughter, Rebecca, and life was looking up for the new mother and increasingly popular lead actress. In 1944 she starred alongside Gene Kelly in Cover Girl. As a promotion Lifehad an article about the actress along with a seductive picture of her wearing black lace and satin which was infamous in World War II as an American servicemen's pinup picture. American Decades quoted Times magazine as having noted that "intended … as the ultimate compliment, the picture was even pasted to a test atomic bomb that was dropped on Bikini atoll in 1946." As her celebrity rose, she started acting in better films. In 1945 she was seen in Tonight and Every Night, and in 1946 she took the leading role in the movie Gilda, the part that scandalized more conservative viewers because of a seductive strip scene, and the part which eventually became Hayworth's best known. According to The Daily Mail, it was Hayworth's part in Gilda that sealed her "screen goddess reputation." Another movie of hers done around this time, Down to Earth,was even included in a 20th century time capsule even though it received mixed reviews.
In 1948 Hayworth starred in The Lady From Shanghai alongside her husband Orson Welles who was also the director of the film. Although that seems rather nice, this was actually the end of Hayworth's relationship with Welles, she was in the process of divorcing him as they made the film. After making The Loves of Carmen, 1948, Hayworth married her third husband, Prince Aly Kahn in 1949. This marriage shocked the nation and brought Hayworth a little ways out of her popularity. Hayworth and Prince Aly Kahn had been having an affair even though they were both married, and she was already pregnant with their daughter Princess Yasmin Aga Kahn when they were married. Unfortunately this marriage ended, and the two were divorced in 1953.
At this point her career was beginning to fade. She never quite recovered from the scandal of her affair and marriage. She made the movies Affair in Trinidad, 1952, Salome, 1953, and Miss Sadie Thompson, 1953 and then was married again in 1953 to the singer Dick Haymes. The marriage was doomed to failure as Haymes beat Hayworth and was said to have tried capitalizing on her fame to bring back his failing career. The marriage ended in 1955. After her divorce she made the filmFire Down Below, 1957 and had a supporting role in 1957's Pal Joey, with Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak playing the leads. In 1958 Hayworth, although acclaimed for her part in Separate Tables,1958, faced a career that was definitely on a downward spiral. It was at this time that she married for the fifth time, marrying producer James Hill. This marriage too ended in divorce, with Hayworth leaving him in 1961. She was quoted in People as having said, "Most men fell in love with Gilda but they woke up with me." Hayworth began to doubt that she would ever have a happy and successful relationship and she thought that one of the biggest problems was the fact that men went to bed with the image of glamour and sophistication shown in parts like Gilda and then woke in the morning with the real her. According to Barbara Learning, Hayworth's biographer, however, Hayworth's troubles with men were caused by her abusive relationship with her father. Although unknown prior to his, it seems that her father "raped [Hayworth] in the afternoons and danced with her at night." Whatever the problem really was, Hayworth never married again.
Hayworth's last string of films included such films as They Came to Cordura, 1959, The Story on Page One, 1960, The Poppy Is Also a Flower, 1967, I Bastardi, 1968, The Naked Zoo, 1971, and The Wrath of God, 1972. She attempted, in 1971, to perform on stage but couldn't do so because she could not remember her lines. It was about this time that people started realizing that there was something seriously wrong with Hayworth. Alzheimer's disease wasn't well known at the time, and there were a myriad of different diagnoses for what was wrong with the once famous actress. In 1981 she was declared unable to take care of herself, and for the next 6 years, until her death on May 14, 1987, her daughter Princess Yasmin Aga Kahn took care of her. Although she had been missing from the public eye for almost two decades, the public felt Hayworth's death, and the once called "American Goddess" will not be forgotten anytime soon. In 2000, according to PR Newswire, Sony Pictures Consumer Products and Hayworth's daughter Princess Yasmin unveiled the first Rita Hay-worth as Gilda Collector Doll. As Interview magazine said about why modern movie stars don't reach the heights of actresses like Rita Hayworth, "Hayworth's skin glows, her eyes beam with pleasure, her hair spills around her face like a river of luxury—it is impossible not to look at her, or long to know her, or want to be like her."
Sources
Books
American Decades CD-ROM, Gale Research, 1998.
Contemporary Newsmakers 1987, Gale Research, 1988.
Dictionary of Hispanic Biography, Gale Research, 1996.
DISCovering Biography, Gale Research, 1997.
DISCovering Multicultural America, Gale Research, 1996.
Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd edition, Gale Research, 1998.
International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 3: Actors and Actresses, St. James Press, 1996.
Learning Barbara, If This Was Happiness, Viking, 1989.
Notable Hispanic American Women, Book 1, Gale Research, 1993.
The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Volume 2: 1986-1990, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
Periodicals
The Daily Mail (London, England), November 19, 2001, p. 43.
Entertainment Weekly, Fall, 1996, p. 48.
Interview, September, 2001, p. 72.
Ladies Home Journal, January, 1983, p. 84.
The New York Times, February 8, 2002, p. E28.
People, June 1, 1987.
PR Newswire, September 26, 2000.
Rita Hayworth, Movie Legend, Dies
By ALBIN KREBS
Rita Hayworth, the legendary Hollywood beauty who rose to international fame in the 1940's and 1950's, died Thursday night, of Alzheimer's disease, in her Central Park West apartment in Manhattan. She was 68 years old.
Since 1981 the actress had been under the care of her second daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, who by publicizing her mother's tragic illness had drawn national and international attention to Alzheimer's disease, about which little was known until recent years.
According to Princess Yasmin, Miss Hayworth's health had steadily deteriorated over the years and she lapsed into a semicoma in February.
The ''courage and candor'' of Miss Hayworth and her family in bringing attention to Alzheimer's disease was praised by President Reagan in a statement yesterday.
''Rita Hayworth was one of our country's most beloved stars,'' he said. ''Glamorous and talented, she gave us many wonderful moments on the stage and screen and delighted audiences from the time she was a young girl.
''Nancy and I are saddened by Rita's death. She was a friend whom we will miss.''
Rita Hayworth was the epitome of Hollywood glamour and allure, a stunningly beautiful actress and dancer.
During World War II, her pinup pictures decorated barracks walls and ships' bulkheads wherever servicemen went, and over two decades her often tempestuous romantic life thrust her into the headlines.
Fred Astaire, who co-starred with her in two movies, said in his autobiography that she was his favorite dancing partner, and dancing was, indeed, one of her genuine talents.
As a singer, however, she was not similarly gifted, even though she was cast in many musicals. Anita Ellis dubbed Miss Hayworth's songs in four movies, including ''Pal Joey'' and ''The Loves of Carmen,'' and other ''ghosts'' did the singing for her in other films.
But that mattered little to Hayworth fans, who admired her chiefly for the sensuality she exuded, playing temptresses in movies such as ''Blood and Sand'' and ''The Lady From Shanghai.'' The Temptress of 'Gilda'
A particularly memorable temptress role was the title one in ''Gilda,'' in 1946, in which she did a striptease, demure by today's standards, inasmuch as it was limited to removing her arm-length gloves. While the controversial strip scene dazzled tens of thousands of young males, it upset more conservative people across the nation.
So did Miss Hayworth's open affair, in the late 1940's, when such behavior was far less commonplace than it is today, with Prince Aly Khan, the playboy son of the spiritual leader of millions of Ismaili Moslems. They were married in 1949, but she divorced him, as she did four other husbands, including Orson Welles.
As Miss Hayworth grew older, she successfully shifted from her glamour image and took on mature roles in movies such as ''Separate Tables'' in 1958 and ''They Came to Cordura'' in 1959. But by the late 1960's she was appearing in minor movies, most of them made in Europe.
And ultimately, the once-idolized star's health was ravaged by Alzheimer's disease - senile dementia, a devastating mental illness that affects the brain, brings on loss of memory, and ravages bodily functions - which left her ''utterly helpless,'' according to Princess Yasmin.
Miss Hayworth was truly born to show business, in New York City, on Oct. 17, 19l8. Her father, Eduardo Cansino, was a Spanish-born dancer and her mother, the former Volga Haworth, had been a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl. They named their daughter Margarita Carmen Cansino, but she shortened the name to Rita Cansino when she began dancing professionally at the age of 12, and kept that name for her first 10 movies.
Mr. Cansino's career took the family to Los Angeles, where his daughter attended school through the ninth grade. Then she joined her father's act and performed in clubs in Tijuana and Agua Caliente, Mexico, where, when she was 16 years old, she was spotted by a Fox Film Company producer, who signed her to a contract.
Making her film debut in 1935 in ''Under the Pampas Moon,'' Rita Cansino appeared in a succession of lesser roles, such as that of a dance hall girl in a Spencer Tracy movie called ''Dante's Inferno.'' Other films in her Cansino period included ''Charlie Chan in Egypt,'' ''Human Cargo'' and ''Meet Nero Wolfe.''
The Fox company's merger with 20th-Century Pictures left the young dancer without a contract, but in 1937 she met and married the man who was to become her Svengali and dramatically change her career fortunes. He was Edward Judson, a shrewd businessman 22 years her senior, under whose guidance she had her eyebrows and hairline altered by electrolysis and transformed herself from a raven-haired Latin to an auburn-haired cosmopolitan.
As her manager, Mr. Judson also changed his wife's professional name, choosing her mother's maiden name of Haworth and adding a ''y'' to clarify the pronunciation. He hired press agents to get the name and picture of Rita Hayworth into newspapers and fan magazines, and ultimately won her a seven-year contract at Columbia Pictures.
But low-budget B movies continued to be Miss Hayworth's lot, except for the 1939 ''Only Angels Have Wings,'' with Cary Grant, in which the director, Howard Hawks, cast her as an unfaithful wife. It was the secondary female role, but one that got the actress her first good critical notices.
Beginning in 1941, Miss Hayworth rapidly developed into one of Hollywood's most glamorous stars, inspiring Winthrop Sargent, a Life magazine writer, to dub her ''The Great American Love Goddess,'' a sobriquet that she welcomed and that caught the public's fancy.
On loan to Warner Brothers, Miss Hayworth appeared opposite James Cagney in ''Strawberry Blonde'' in 1941 and, back at Columbia, she achieved full star status when she was cast as Mr. Astaire's dancing partner in ''You'll Never Get Rich,'' a 1941 hit that got her a Time magazine cover article and instant celebrity. In 1942, she appeared in three hit movies, ''My Gal Sal,'' ''Tales of Manhattan'' and ''You Were Never Lovelier,'' the last again as Mr. Astaire's co-star.
Her performance in ''Cover Girl,'' with Gene Kelly in 1944, earned Miss Hayworth the attention of Life magazine, which printed a photograph of her, posed seductively in black lace, that became famous around the world as an American servicemen's pinup. In what was intended, no doubt, as the ultimate compliment, the picture was even pasted to a test atomic bomb that was dropped on Bikini atoll in 1946.
Miss Hayworth, unlike stars who claimed to deplore their own publicity, reveled in hers. ''Why should I mind?'' she said. ''I like having my picture taken and being a glamorous person. Sometimes when I find myself getting impatient, I just remember the times I cried my eyes out because nobody wanted to take my picture at the Trocadero.''
A great boost to Miss Hayworth's career was ''Gilda,'' which ran into censorship trouble in some areas because of the so-called strip scene. In it, she wore a clinging black satin strapless gown and, while coyly peeling off long black gloves, sang a mildly suggestive song called ''Put the Blame on Mame.'' Actually, the voice was that of Anita Ellis.
Miss Hayworth, who had divorced her first husband, married Orson Welles in 1943, and they had a daughter, Rebecca. While Mr. Welles was directing her in one of her best films, ''The Lady From Shanghai'' (1949), she filed for divorce from him. Miss Hayworth had met and fallen in love with Prince Aly Khan and, since neither was divorced at the time, their travels together through Europe provoked some public indignation.
When they were married in 1949, the fact that Miss Hayworth was visibly pregnant was widely reported. She divorced Aly Khan two years later and was subsequently married to and divorced from the singer Dick Haymes and then James Hill, a movie producer.
Miss Hayworth's more than 40 films also included ''Affair in Trinidad'' (1952), ''Salome'' and ''Miss Sadie Thompson'' (1953), ''Fire Down Below'' (1957), ''The Story on Page One'' (1960), ''The Poppy Is Also a Flower'' (1967), and ''The Wrath of God'' (1972).
She attempted a stage career in 1971, but it ended abruptly because she was unable to remember her lines. Six years later, a court in Santa Ana, Calif., named an administrator for her affairs on the recommendation of a physician who said she was disabled by chronic alcoholism.
Despite her heavy drinking, however, it later appeared that the diagnosis of alcoholism might have been erroneous and that Miss Hayworth was actually suffering from the first stages of Alzheimer's disease.
In June 1981, a court in Los Angeles declared the actress legally unable to care for herself and she was put in the care of Princess Yasmin, who took her to New York to live. In 1985 the Princess married a Greek shipping executive, Basil Embiricos, but the marriage was short-lived. They had a son, Andrew. Miss Hayworth's other daughter, Rebecca Welles, lives in Tacoma, Wash.
Princess Yasmin, testifying in 1983 before a Congressional committee concerned with appropriating funds for Alzheimer's disease research, said that the disease had reduced her mother to ''a state of utter helplessness.''
The Princess's appearance was among her many efforts in recent years to draw attention to Alzheimer's disease. She has taken a major role in the growth of the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association Inc., which has headquarters in Chicago and more than 130 chapters and affiliates, backing some 500 family-support groups. She is vice president of that organization and president of Alzheimer's Disease International, which she helped organize in 1985.
A funeral service for Miss Hayworth will be held Monday at 10 A.M. in the Church of the Good Shepherd, Beverly Hills, Calif.
Rita Hayworth American actress
Rita Hayworth, original name Margarita Carmen Cansino (born October 17, 1918, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died May 14, 1987, New York, New York), American motion-picture actress and dancer who rose to glamorous stardom in the 1940s and ’50s.
The daughter of Spanish-born dancer Eduardo Cansino and his partner, Volga Haworth, Hayworth as a child worked as a professional dancer with her parents’ nightclub act. While still a teenager, she appeared on-screen under her given name of Rita Cansino in films such as Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935), Dante’s Inferno (1935), and Meet Nero Wolfe (1936). On the advice of her first husband, Edward Judson (who became her manager), she changed her name and dyed her hair auburn, cultivating a sophisticated glamour that first registered with her role as an unfaithful wife who tries to seduce Cary Grant in Only Angels Have Wings (1939).
After a few inconsequential films, Hayworth gradually rose to the rank of star, playing femmes fatales in quality melodramas such as The Lady in Question(1940), Blood and Sand (1941), and The Strawberry Blonde (1941). Her dancing skills were well-showcased opposite Fred Astaire (who in later years cited Hayworth as his favourite dance partner) in You’ll Never Get Rich (1941) andYou Were Never Lovelier (1942) and with Gene Kelly in Cover Girl (1944), a film that helped establish both Hayworth and Kelly among the top stars of the day. It was also during this time that she became a favourite pinup of American servicemen; her publicity still, depicting the lingerie-clad Hayworth kneeling seductively on a bed, became an indelible image of World War II.
The definitive Hayworth film is undoubtedly Gilda (1946), in which she appeared opposite Glenn Ford, her frequent costar. A classic of film noir, Gilda featured Hayworth as the quintessential “noir woman,” a duplicitous temptress and an abused victim in equal measure. A daring, quirky film for its time, Gildawas rife with sexually suggestive imagery and dialogue (such as Hayworth’s “If I’d have been a ranch, they would have called me the Bar Nothing”) and featured Hayworth’s striptease to the song “
Put the Blame on Mame,” perhaps the actress’s most famous film scene. Two years later, Hayworth starred in another film noir classic, The Lady from Shanghai (1947). Directed by Hayworth’s then-husband, Orson Welles, it is perhaps the most labyrinthine film in the genre, Hayworth’s portrayal of a cynical seductress is one of her most praised performances. It was also about this time that Life magazine dubbed Hayworth “The Love Goddess,” an appellation that, much to the actress’s chagrin, would remain with her for life.
Never comfortable with fame or the trappings of a celebrity life, Hayworth was absent from films during her marriage (1949–51) to Prince Aly Khan. Although several of her dramatic performances in films of the 1950s are among her most praised—in particular Affair in Trinidad (1952), Salome (1953), Miss Sadie Thompson (1953), Pal Joey (1957), Separate Tables (1958), and They Came to Cordura (1959)—Hayworth grew increasingly frustrated with the acting profession. This frustration, coupled with another failed, stressful marriage (to singer Dick Haymes), caused her to become increasingly cynical and to display a sense of detachment from her work. Her film appearances became increasingly sporadic throughout the 1960s, and she appeared in her final film, The Wrath of God, in 1972.
Rumours of Hayworth’s erratic and drunken behaviour began to circulate during the late 1960s, and her attempt to launch a Broadway career in the early ’70s was stifled by her inability to remember lines. In truth, Hayworth was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer disease, although she would not be officially diagnosed with the condition until 1980. The publicity surrounding Hayworth’s battle was a catalyst for increasing national awareness of the disease and for bringing about federal funding for Alzheimer research.
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