Hayworth, Rita

Hayworth, Rita

 orig. Margarita Carmen Cansino

(born Oct. 17, 1918, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.—died May 14, 1987, New York City) U.S. film actress. She danced with her father in nightclubs from age 12 and played bit parts in films from 1935. She cultivated a sophisticated glamour in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Strawberry Blonde (1941), and Blood and Sand (1941). The musicals You'll Never Get Rich (1941), You Were Never Lovelier (1942), and Cover Girl (1944) made her a star and a favourite pinup of U.S. GIs during World War II. Her worldly, erotic role in Gilda (1946) confirmed her status in Hollywood as “the Love Goddess.” Her later films include The Lady from Shanghai (1948), Pal Joey (1957), and Separate Tables (1958).

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Hayworth, Rita (b. Margarita Carmen Cansino) (1918–87) movie actress; born in New York City. Child of then well-known Latin dancer, Eduardo Cansino, she began dancing in public at age six and began her movie career in her teens, dancing as a sultry señorita. She took some acting lessons, changed her name, and (with her now red hair) started a new career. She proved to be a versatile performer, at home in musicals (although her singing was dubbed), more than able-bodied as a sex goddess (as in Gilda, 1946), and maturing into a creditable actress in such movies as Separate Tables (1958). Her offscreen life had its own glamour, what with her marriages to Orson Welles and Aly Khan, but two more unhappy marriages and Alzheimer's disease clouded her final years.