HAYWORTH, RITA

born Oct. 17, 1918, Brooklyn, New York City died May 14, 1987, New York City original name Margarita Carmen Cansino American motion-picture actress who rose to glamorous stardom in the 1940s and '50s. She was called The Great American Love Goddess. The daughter of Spanish-born dancer Eduardo Cansino and his partner Volga Haworth, Hayworth became a professional dancer with her father's nightclub act at the age of 12 and appeared as Spanish dancer Rita Cansino in several films beginning in 1935. Then, 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 in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Strawberry Blonde (1941), and Blood and Sand (1941). The musicals You'll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942), both with Fred Astaire, and Cover Girl (1944), with Gene Kelly, made her a star and a favourite pinup girl of American servicemen. The worldly eroticism of Hayworth's performance rose to its peak in Gilda (1946), which had some censorship problems because of the so-called striptease in which she was seen singing Put the Blame on Mame (the dubbed voice was actually that of Anita Ellis). Her later films included The Lady from Shanghai (1948), directed by her second husband, Orson Welles, as well as Affair in Trinidad (1952), Salome (1953), Miss Sadie Thompson (1953), Pal Joey (1957), Separate Tables (1958), The Money Trap (1966), and The Wrath of God (1972). For some 15 years before her death, Hayworth suffered from Alzheimer's disease.