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Rita Hayworth: Columbia Pictures
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Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, into a family of multiple generations of Spanish dancers. Her father, Eduardo, trained her from an early age, and she performed onstage as a dancer as young as eight years old. Rita Hayworth was said to look very mature and was picked up by Fox Pictures in 1935 for Dante's Inferno. She appeared in numerous films as a dancer, tempering her Latin looks with plastic surgery and electrolysis because she felt it would enhance her success in Hollywood.
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Synopsis: Rising star Rita Hayworth puts in a little box-office duty in the Columbia "B" Juvenile Court. The star of the proceedings is Paul Kelly as crusading public defender Gary Franklin, who hopes to establish a Police Athletic League to give street kids a new chance in life. His toughest charge isRead More
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Hayworth gave one of her most acclaimed performances in Orson Welles's The Lady from Shanghai (1948), though it failed at the box office. The failure was in part attributed to the fact that director/co-star Welles had Hayworth's famous red locks cut off and the rest dyed blonde for her role. This was done without Harry Cohn's knowledge or approval, and he was furious over the change. Her next film, The Loves of Carmen (1948) with Glenn Ford, was the first film co-produced by Columbia and Rita's own production company, The Beckworth Corporation (named for her daughter Rebecca). It was Columbia's biggest moneymaker for that year. She received a percentage of the profits from this and all of her subsequent films until 1955, when Hayworth dissolved Beckworth to pay off debts she owed to Columbia.
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In Tonight and Every Night Rita played a performer who sang and danced every night so that the war-weary soldiers who visited London's Music Box Theatre could forget their troubles. Columbia Pictures' new head of design, Jean Louis, with the help of Marcel Vertes, would create the costumes for the film. In addition to the usual task of creating both glamorous showgirl costumes and everyday fashions, this film carried with it a special obstacle -hide the fact that she's pregnant! They handled this delicate situation by rushing to film the dance numbers first, before her pregnancy was noticeable, then for the rest of the movie she was filmed behind high furniture, lots of close-ups or discreetly hiding her tummy behind a muff or wearing a quite fashionable maternity dress by the final scene. Of course this does not affect the level of quality. The wardrobe created for the film is truly stunning and marked the beginning of a long and beautiful fashion partnership.
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After fourteen low-budget movies, Hayworth was finally given a leading role. She was hired by Howard W. Hawks to portray an unfaithful wife in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), which starred Cary Grant. Good reviews of her performance attracted attention: she was borrowed from Columbia by Warner Brothers Pictures for the film Strawberry Blonde (1941) with James Cagney, and in that same year, she made Blood and Sand (1941) with Fox. Hayworth began to shine. According to Time, "something magical happened when the cameras began to roll"; the woman who was "shy" and "unassuming" offstage "warmed the set." The New York Times wrote that Hayworth "rapidly developed into one of Hollywood's most glamorous stars."
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Rita and Aly Khan were followed wherever they went. For months on end, they were never out of the headlines. Pictures of the couple appeared throughout the world. The demand by newspapers for material about them created a feverish market, and journalists and photographers went to ever greater lengths to obtain gossip and pictures. Bribes were offered, blackmail was tried, even impersonations were attempted. It was the world's first show-biz media feeding frenzy.
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