Rita Hayworth: The Pin-Up Queen

[ClassyCo]

One of the first ladies I got hooked on when I first started watching classic movies was Rita Hayworth. I remember watching her version of The Loves of Carmen on this raggedy VHS tape until it was practically worn beyond saving.

The subtitle I've used for this thread, The Pin-Up Queen, is actually misleading to who Rita Hayworth actually was as a whole. While modern popular culture might reduce her to her 1941 famous pin-up or her hair-tossing introduction in Gilda, film buffs will be well-aware that she left a sustaining imprint on American film history. Not only was she one of the most beautiful women ever photographed before the motion picture camera, she made some quality pictures, and was a consistent box office draw during World War II.

 

[ClassyCo]

One of THE pin-up photos. The boys in WWII went crazy for this one. It was voted the number one pin-up during the war years by U.S. soldiers.

 

[ginnyfan]

It's her day on TCM's Summer Under The Stars today. Tune in!

I just came from Garbo thread where I waxed lyrically about how photogenic she was and how she created magic on camera. Well if anything compares to that, it's Rita Hayworth in Gilda. The woman just glows and looks absolutely stunning every second of it. It's almost hard to believe.



One of my later favorites of her, is Miss Sadie Thompson, a more mature but equally alluring Rita, with a great performance.

image hosting free


Contrary to the popular opinion, I love her as a blonde in The Lady from Shanghai. The movie was another Orson Wells bomb but I think it's really good and Rita's marvellous in it.

 

[Crimson]

Rita was to the 40s what Dietrich was to the 30s and Marilyn was to the 50s; the most cinematically photogenic actress of her decade. Rita obliterated the other pin-up girls of her era -- Lana, Ava, Betty, Jane, Linda -- in terms of screen magnetism. That's not to say she was the prettiest or sexiest or most talented or most accomplished. She was just luminous on screen in a way the others weren't.

Rita in GILDA is matched only by Dietrich in SHANGAI EXPRESS and Marilyn in NIAGARA ; the camera just loved her. The movie itself is curiously inconsequential.

After taking a break from films in the late 40s, her luster dimmed surprisingly fast. In her films in the 50s, she was still beautiful and still appealing, but much of the spark and vivacity were gone.

 

[ClassyCo]

It's her day on TCM's Summer Under The Stars today. Tune in!

I just came from Garbo thread where I waxed lyrically about how photogenic she was and how she created magic on camera. Well if anything compares to that, it's Rita Hayworth in Gilda. The woman just glows and looks absolutely stunning every second of it. It's almost hard to believe.



One of my later favorites of her, is Miss Sadie Thompson, a more mature but equally alluring Rita, with a great performance.

image hosting free


Contrary to the popular opinion, I love her as a blonde in The Lady from Shanghai. The movie was another Orson Wells bomb but I think it's really good and Rita's marvellous in it.

I'm sorry to say I did miss it, and nothing got recorded on my DVR. I very rarely watch actual TV anymore; it's all Hulu, Netflix, and DVDs for this guy.

 

[ClassyCo]

This has twelve of her films, all remastered and given this sleek, sophisticated, old Hollywood packaging.

The movies are:

Music In My Heart
You'll Never Get Rich
You Were Never Lovelier
Cover Girl
Tonight and Every Night
Gilda
Down to Earth
The Lady from Shanghai
The Loves of Carmen
Affair in Trinidad
Miss Sadie Thompson
Salome
​

I'd love to have this, but it's almost one hundred dollars, and that's a little too pricy for me right now.

 

[ClassyCo]

Rita was to the 40s what Dietrich was to the 30s and Marilyn was to the 50s; the most cinematically photogenic actress of her decade. Rita obliterated the other pin-up girls of her era -- Lana, Ava, Betty, Jane, Linda -- in terms of screen magnetism. That's not to say she was the prettiest or sexiest or most talented or most accomplished. She was just luminous on screen in a way the others weren't.

Rita in GILDA is matched only by Dietrich in SHANGAI EXPRESS and Marilyn in NIAGARA ; the camera just loved her. The movie itself is curiously inconsequential.

After taking a break from films in the late 40s, her luster dimmed surprisingly fast. In her films in the 50s, she was still beautiful and still appealing, but much of the spark and vivacity were gone.

I could not have said it any better. Hayworth was a beautifully photogenic, and she rode her beauty all the way to the bank. The fact that she was a redhead only heightened her charisma in my personal opinion, and I enjoy how she was willing to take some risks, like bobbing her hair and going blonde for The Lady from Shanghai. She wasn't quite as attractive with blonde hair, but that's just my thought, but the movie itself was actually pretty good.

Anyway, I've always found it odd how Hayworth's career hit the skids after she came back to Hollywood in 1952, after spending four years away while she was married to Prince Aly Khan. Columbia Pictures was rightfully ecstatic when she decided to return, but it just seemed like she had past her prime. Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, and Marilyn Monroe were coming into their own and dominated the box office, and within a year or so, Columbia had their own successor, Kim Novak. The magic was simply gone when Rita returned to the U.S., and she never really regained that former glory.

One thing a lot of the press noted at the time was how bad they thought she had aged. While I can agree she did look older, I cannot say she wasn't still a very pretty woman, that appeared to be aging graciously, if only for a while. Apparently a fan once said "Oh my god, she looks so old!" when they saw her at a premiere in the late 1950s. This evidently hurt Hayworth, and she lost some self-confidence.

Really I can only think that her marriage to Prince Aly Khan aged her, and therefore took away a lot of her charisma that had made her so special before. She's a treasure, nonetheless, and a woman I've always held close to my fascination.

 

[Crimson]

I've always found it odd how Hayworth's career hit the skids after she came back to Hollywood in 1952

I'm not especially well versed in Rita's life, having only read a few bio-snippets in books on movie stars and the Lynda Carter TV-movie (which, like most of its ilk, is probably sketchy at best). It may be too pat of an answer, but it looks like life just wore Rita down. She seemed to have a hard, sad life. Second husband Orson Welles later recalled that she considered her marriage to him among the happiest years of her life. "If this was happiness", imagine what the rest was like ...

And, of course, impossible to know when the dreadful muddle of alcoholism and early Alzheimer's began to affect her.

 

[ClassyCo]

I'm not especially well versed in Rita's life, having only read a few bio-snippets in books on movie stars and the Lynda Carter TV-movie (which, like most of its ilk, is probably sketchy at best). It may be too pat of an answer, but it looks like life just wore Rita down. She seemed to have a hard, sad life. Second husband Orson Welles later recalled that she considered her marriage to him among the happiest years of her life. "If this was happiness", imagine what the rest was like ...

And, of course, impossible to know when the dreadful muddle of alcoholism and early Alzheimer's began to affect her.

My knowledge has gotten fuzzy over the years. It's been a while since I've done any digging into her life. All I really know is Columbia had a big hit with her star vehicle The Loves of Carmen in 1948, and they were rightfully irked that she wanted to walkout on her film career to marry a prince. This royal marriage wasn't a happy one, as her husband often spent his time with other women, among them actress Joan Fontaine. When she came back to Hollywood four years later, she seemed tired, worn, and vacant of the electricity she had that made her the box office powerhouse she had been in the 1940s. After she did Salome and Miss Sadie Thompson in 1953, she took another four-year break from the movies, before returning for Pal Joey and Fire Down Below in 1957, which was the point a lot of her fans stated she looked so old.

​

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I'm not especially well versed in Rita's life, having only read a few bio-snippets in books on movie stars and the Lynda Carter TV-movie (which, like most of its ilk, is probably sketchy at best). It may be too pat of an answer, but it looks like life just wore Rita down. She seemed to have a hard, sad life. Second husband Orson Welles later recalled that she considered her marriage to him among the happiest years of her life. "If this was happiness", imagine what the rest was like ...

And, of course, impossible to know when the dreadful muddle of alcoholism and early Alzheimer's began to affect her.

Welles, the last day his life, said in an interview that Hayworth was "the sweetest person."

 

[ginnyfan]

From what I've read and watched in documentaries about her, Rita made some terrible relationship choices after her marriage to Prince Aly Khan ended. She dated jerks who used and abused her, wasted her money and damaged her public profile and career. After her brief early 50s successful return, she made another break cause of her marriage to singer Dick Haymes. By the time she made her second comeback, in the late 50s, she was considered damaged goods and Kim Novak has overtaken her Columbia throne. Rita left the studio, ending her long, tumultuous professional relationship with Harry Cohn, and made some good pictures at other studios, but sadly by the mid 60s her health deteriorated and her career slowed down again.

She made many movies with Glenn Ford and they were a great movie couple. Apparently they were in a on again/off again relationship most of their lives, which is nice to know cause they seemed like a perfect match.

 

[ClassyCo]

From what I've read and watched in documentaries about her, Rita made some terrible relationship choices after her marriage to Prince Aly Khan ended. She dated jerks who used and abused her, wasted her money and damaged her public profile and career. After her brief early 50s successful return, she made another break cause of her marriage to singer Dick Haymes. By the time she made her second comeback, in the late 50s, she was considered damaged goods and Kim Novak has overtaken her Columbia throne. Rita left the studio, ending her long, tumultuous professional relationship with Harry Cohn, and made some good pictures at other studios, but sadly by the mid 60s her health deteriorated and her career slowed down again.

She made many movies with Glenn Ford and they were a great movie couple. Apparently they were in a on again/off again relationship most of their lives, which is nice to know cause they seemed like a perfect match.

They seemed to genuinely like one another. It's unfortunate that nothing more can of their relationship besides little flings during the production of their movies together. Their chemistry together on-screen was great, and that cannot be so easily faked sometimes.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

 

[ClassyCo]

This has twelve of her films, all remastered and given this sleek, sophisticated, old Hollywood packaging.

The movies are:

Music In My Heart ​

You'll Never Get Rich​

You Were Never Lovelier ​

Cover Girl ​

Tonight and Every Night ​

Gilda ​

Down to Earth​

The Lady from Shanghai ​

The Loves of Carmen ​

Affair in Trinidad ​

Miss Sadie Thompson ​

Salome ​

​

I'd love to have this, but it's almost one hundred dollars, and that's a little too pricy for me right now.

So this was the Region 2 DVD set, but the other day I saw this set at Walmart for under $20 (US):



It's got the same films within the set, but I'd guess this a more standard, American "budget" release from Mill Creek.​

 

[ClassyCo]