When he saw the famous Life pinup photograph, Orson Welles decided to marry her, and he did so in 1943.
Rita hayworth old movie#
But in a rare, explicit show of strength, Hayworth refused her husband's order to sleep with ''the notoriously crude movie mogul.'' Leaming, Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures - who had suggested she take her mother's maiden name, Hayworth, and who cast her as a pilot's wife in the classic Howard Hawks film ''Only Angels Have Wings'' - ''developed an obsession'' with the beautiful young woman. He also offered her body to any man he thought would advance her career.Īccording to Ms. Her husband repeatedly threatened her with physical abuse and disfigurement. Hayworth silently welcomed his ''protection,'' probably believing she was unable to take care of herself. He also rented gowns for her, took her to nightclubs, paid press photographers to take her picture, fabricated awards for her and answered all remarks addressed to her. Judson promoted his wife's film career by dying her hair auburn and raising her hairline with electrolysis. Judson did get her a seven-year starlet contract at Columbia Pictures, where she did a fiery flamenco in ''Criminals of the Air'' and played on an all-female softball team in ''Girls Can Play.'' Like her father, Judson saw the girl as, in her own words, ''an investment.'' He even demanded that Cansino turn previously earned money over to him. Her mother, who had been unable to protect the girl from her father, objected to her marriage to a man her father's age and indeed, on occasion, slapped Judson during quarrels. In 1937, a 41-year-old lounge lizard and sometime car dealer named Eddie Judson married 18-year-old Margarita. Press releases abbreviated her name to Rita Cansino and extolled the ''beautiful sixteen-year-old Spanish-Irish dancer who has circled the globe a dozen times.'' Then, in a 1935 Fox film called ''Dante's Inferno'' starring Spencer Tracy, the morbidly shy girl did a sensuous dance sequence. Cansino further exploited her by introducing her to movie producers such as Joe Schenck, who gave her a screen test that led to work as an ethnic extra in films being shot in Mexico. The ''roly-poly'' 12-year-old obediently flashed her eyes and tantalized. Telling people she was his wife, he dyed the child's hair black, put scarlet lipstick on her mouth and dressed her in garish, sexy clothes. A failure in films because of his poor English, Cansino began taking his daughter, Margarita - or Carmen, as he called her - out of school to dance as his partner on casino stages in Tijuana. In 1927, Eduardo Cansino, a Spanish-born flamenco dancer whose work in vaudeville was admired by Fred Astaire, moved his young family from Brooklyn to California. Leaming, her father's abusive treatment was the key to her emotional development and led to a lifetime of disastrous relationships. Her mother - probably the only other person who knew about it - slept in a bed with the child in a vain attempt at protection. Margarita Carmen Cansino grew up with a sickening, isolating secret: her father was sexually abusing her. But the most haunting image in Barbara Leaming's biography of the movie star, ''If This Was Happiness,'' is one of a fat, silent 12-year-old girl sitting on the front porch of her house and staring straight ahead, too terrified to play with other children. Seeming to offer her body, Hayworth also appears to be keeping her real self in mysterious reserve.Īs an actress, Hayworth is best remembered as Gilda in the film of the same name, peeling off long black gloves in a self-absorbed striptease.
The pinup, published in Life magazine in 1941, is a fascinating study in contradictions. The most famous image of Rita Hayworth, erotic icon of the 1940's, is a pinup photograph in which she is kneeling on a rumpled bed, wearing a dark satin-and-lace nightgown her head is turned over her shoulder and she is facing the camera directly. IF THIS WAS HAPPINESS A Biography of Rita Hayworth.
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