The Trials and Triumphs of a Hollywood Star: Rita Hayworth

This is a piece of work submitted in my first year of my degree, in Film, Photography and Video. In the style of a newspaper article in 1946 about the Hollywood star Rita Hayworth.

The Trials and Triumphs of a Hollywood Star

Rita Hayworth

Wednesday 20^th Feb 1946

With Charles Vidor’s latest film hitting the big screen, it won’t be long before we hear of the great success and it travels over to the UK. But who is ‘Gilda’? and what is the story behind Rita Hayworth, the incredible actress who brings Gilda to life? I was lucky enough to see the US premier on the 14^th of this month and previously have a brief chat with Rita herself on set, where I discovered the true star and how she became so talented.

Margarita Carmen Cansino was born in Brooklyn New York on the 17^th October 1918, into a showbiz family that eventually started to form and mould her lifestyle and career at a very young age. At the age of three her father had introduced her to dance, and from then on she has been told what to do by other people, whether it is her parents or the film industry. She has since admitted’ I didn't like it very much, but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons’. By the age of eight the family had moved to Hollywood, mainly to further establish her father’s dance studio. After a long childhood of dancing and being ruled by her father’s ambitions, she was allowed to break into acting. Her grace and beauty soon attracted Hollywood, but she soon had to change to fit in with the stereotypical Hollywood glamour, her appearance was crafted from her make up to her hair colour, this enhanced her career in terms of gaining more fame and wealth, yet surely being thrown into this entertainment world couldn’t be bringing her much happiness?

‘ I never really thought of myself as a sex goddess; I felt I was more a comedian who could dance’. Whether or not Rita admits it or not, there is no denying that she is an incredible star  of our time, her recent film ‘Gilda’ clearly proves her fantastic talent. I was able to speak to her briefly on the set of ‘Gilda’ and in person Rita was quiet and modest, only when the cameras started rolling did she turn on the explosive sexual charisma that was Gilda. But as Rita herself said ‘The fun of acting is to become someone else’ and that is exactly what happens when she is in front of the camera, she becomes Gilda.

Rita Hayworth’s passion was dance, much to her fathers influence, but her acting talents have taken over and she has become a sex symbol within the Hollywood industry. From starring in her first major film, ‘Only Angles Have Wings’ in 1939 which was her big break for her journey of many small film roles and to seek stardom. Each film had set her up for better roles, whilst she was on loan to Warner Bros she stared in ‘The Strawberry Blonde’ which was a huge success, this truly made her popularity rise. She then starred in Blood and Sand with the Fox Company, proving that she was wanted everywhere. She went back to Columbia Pictures afterwards and starred in a number of hugely successful films, including ‘You’ll never get rich’ opposite Fred Astaire and ‘Tales of Manhattan’. She really was a star in the making, but perhaps she was thrown into too much too soon, her marriage to Edward C Judson broke down in 1942, after just 5 years of marriage. She soon remarried to Orson Welles in 1943 and they are still happily married. Perhaps something that started Orson Welles attraction to Rita was the pictures she posed for, for Life Magazine, which showed her seductively perched on a bed in her negligee, making her a huge pin-up girl. Despite this sexualised appearance we all see and know her for Rita was sure to keep her dignity and respect for herself, ‘Everybody else does nude scenes, but I don't. I never made nude movies. I didn't have to do that. I danced. I was provocative, I guess, in some things. But I was not completely exposed’. In 1943 Rita’s strained relationship with Columbia Pictures came to light when Rita refused to star in ‘My Client Curley’, she was therefore suspended without pay for 9 weeks, as of course Rita was not allowed to choose what films she starred in as she was owned by the company. This raises the question, is this beautiful young woman being trapped and controlled by an industry in which there is no escape? But was this the chance she had been looking for, to show that courage, that she never felt comfortable doing in front of her father? To be able to reject something she did not want to do?

In 1944 Rita starred in musical ‘Covergirl’ with Gene Kelly, perhaps in this film Rita was more comfortable in what she knew and what she’d learnt from her previous films. Her amazing talent of dance shone through with outstanding and powerful dancing. However ironically her singing had to be dubbed in the musicals, yet this was not a problem to the success of the film. She continued to be a part of these Technicolor films with Columbia, including ‘Tonight and Every Night’ in 1945, in which she achieved more fantastic dancing scenes when she was pregnant with her child Rebecca. This proved to be very controversial with the Columbia Pictures bosses, as they suspended Rita when she ‘hit the maternity hospital’.

This brings us back to her huge success in her latest film ‘Gilda’, it is yet to be confirmed of how much profit this film has and will make, but with Rita’s wonderful talents shinning through onto the big screen, there is no doubt that this film will be popular. Director Charles Vidor and the Columbia Pictures industry both knew that Rita Hayworth would bring true attraction and entertainment to this film, secluded to be released on the 15^th of March, but of course it will take time to see the true impact of this film on the film industry and Rita’s career. However whatever the success of this film, there is no denying that Rita has put her heart and soul into her career and she deserves to be applauded for her great achievements.