There was only one true Hollywood Love Goddess, and that
was Rita Hayworth. The sultry Hayworth made
a name for herself simmering her way across the silver screen through the
40's and 50's . If that wasn't enough, she was also a pin-up icon to hundreds
of G.I.'s fighting overseas during World War Two. During the 1940's, Hayworth
optimized Hollywood glamor and her effect is still being felt today.
She started off in Hollywood as a B-list contract
player until her first big break in Howard Hawk's 1939 film Only
Angels Have Wings. After that she rocketed to A-list status and
became one of the brightest stars in Hollywood.
When World War Two started, she along with
numorous other stars helped out with the war effort on the home front.
She danced with soldiers in the famous Hollywood Canteen and performed
in many USO shows. And of course there were the pin-ups. Hayworth's
pin-ups had such an impact on World War Two servicemen that her image was
put on the side of the atomic bomb that was tested at Bikini Atoll in 1946.
So, in a very real way, Hayworth lived up to her bombshell
image.
In 1943 she married legendary director Orson
Welles. A marriage that ended five years later during their team-up on
the film The Lady From Shanghai.
The real defining moment in Hayworth's film
career was her starring role in the 1946 film Gilda with
the show-stopping one-glove striptease number "Put The Blame on Mame."
After that scene, opera gloves were never looked at the same way again.
In 1948, Hayworth found her
real Prince Charming when she married Prince Aly Khan. But
like most of her romances, this one didn't last long.
The 1950's saw her legend grow with films
like Salome (1953), Pal Joey with Frank
Sinatra and Kim Novack (1957), and
Separate
Tables in 1958.
Hayworth's last feature film
was The Wrath of God (1972). By that time, she had been diagnosed
with Alzheimer's, a fact that wasn't made public until the early 1980's.
Hayworth
died in 1987, but she was always live on as an icon of Hollywood style,
grace, and glamor.
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