Rita Hayworth achieved fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars, appearing in 61 films over 37 years.
97 Facts About Rita Hayworth
2.
Rita Hayworth was the top pin-up girl for GIs during World War II.
3.
Rita Hayworth is perhaps best known for her performance in the 1946 film noir Gilda, opposite Glenn Ford, in which she played the femme fatale in her first major dramatic role.
4.
Rita Hayworth is known for her performances in Only Angels Have Wings, The Strawberry Blonde, Blood and Sand, The Lady from Shanghai, Pal Joey, and Separate Tables.
5.
Rita Hayworth starred in the Technicolor musical Cover Girl, with Gene Kelly.
6.
Rita Hayworth is listed as one of the top 25 female motion picture stars of all time in the American Film Institute's survey, AFI's 100 Years.
7.
In 1980, Rita Hayworth was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, which contributed to her death in 1987 at age 68.
8.
Rita Hayworth's mother, Volga Hayworth, was an American of Irish and English descent who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies.
9.
Rita Hayworth popularized the bolero, and his dancing school in Madrid was world-famous.
10.
Rita Hayworth attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex, where she was taught by her uncle Angel Cansino.
11.
Rita Hayworth believed that dancing could be featured in the movies and that his family could be part of it.
12.
Rita Hayworth established his own dance studio, where he taught such stars as James Cagney and Jean Harlow.
13.
Rita Hayworth's hair was dyed from brown to black to give her a more mature and "Latin" appearance.
14.
Rita Hayworth danced with her father in such nightspots as the Foreign and the Caliente clubs.
15.
Winfield Sheehan, the head of the Fox Film Corporation, saw her dancing at the Caliente Club and quickly arranged for Rita Hayworth to do a screen test a week later.
16.
Rita Hayworth had her first speaking role as an Argentinian girl in Under the Pampas Moon.
17.
Rita Hayworth played an Egyptian girl in Charlie Chan in Egypt, and a Russian dancer in Paddy O'Day.
18.
Rita Hayworth was heard to say her last name sounded too Spanish.
19.
Rita Hayworth appeared in five minor Columbia pictures and three minor independent movies in 1937.
20.
Rita Hayworth returned in triumph to Columbia Pictures, and was cast in the musical You'll Never Get Rich opposite Fred Astaire in one of the highest-budgeted films Columbia had ever made.
21.
Rita Hayworth was better when she was 'on' than at rehearsal.
22.
For two years, Rita Hayworth's photograph was the most requested pin-up photograph in circulation.
23.
In 2002, the satin nightgown Rita Hayworth wore for the photo sold for $26,888.
24.
In March 1942, Rita Hayworth visited Brazil as a cultural ambassador for the Roosevelt administration's Good Neighbor policy, under the auspices of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.
25.
Rita Hayworth had top billing in one of her best-known films, the Technicolor musical Cover Girl, released in 1944.
26.
For three consecutive years, starting in 1944, Rita Hayworth was named one of the top movie box-office attractions in the world.
27.
Rita Hayworth was adept in ballet, tap, ballroom, and Spanish routines.
28.
The role, in which Rita Hayworth wore black satin and performed a legendary one-glove striptease, "Put The Blame On Mame", made her into a cultural icon as a femme fatale.
29.
Rita Hayworth wanted to go to Washington to hold a press conference, but Harry Cohn wouldn't let her because it would be unpatriotic.
30.
The fourth atomic bomb ever to be detonated was decorated with a photograph of Rita Hayworth cut from the June 1946 issue of Esquire magazine.
31.
Cohn had not been consulted and was furious that Rita Hayworth's image was changed.
32.
Also in 1947, Rita Hayworth was featured in a Life cover story by Winthrop Sargeant that resulted in her being nicknamed "The Love Goddess".
33.
Rita Hayworth received a percentage of the profits from this and all her subsequent films until 1954, when she dissolved Beckworth to pay off debts.
34.
In 1948, at the height of her fame, Rita Hayworth traveled to Cannes and was introduced to Prince Aly Khan.
35.
Rita Hayworth left Hollywood and sailed for France, breaking her contract with Columbia.
36.
On December 28,1949, Rita Hayworth gave birth to the couple's only child, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan.
37.
Rita Hayworth struggled to fit in with his friends, and found it difficult to learn French.
38.
In 1951, Rita Hayworth set sail with her two daughters for New York.
39.
Director Vincent Sherman recalled that Rita Hayworth seemed "rather frightened at the approach of doing another picture".
40.
Rita Hayworth continued to clash with Columbia boss Harry Cohn and was placed on suspension during filming.
41.
Rita Hayworth continued to star in a string of successful pictures.
42.
Rita Hayworth received good reviews for her performance in Separate Tables, with Burt Lancaster and David Niven, and The Story on Page One.
43.
Rita Hayworth continued to act in films until the early 1970s.
44.
Rita Hayworth made comedic television appearances on Laugh In and The Carol Burnett Show in the 1970s.
45.
Rita Hayworth had a strained relationship with Columbia Pictures for many years.
46.
Rita Hayworth left Hollywood to marry Prince Aly Khan and was suspended for failing to report to work on the film Affair in Trinidad.
47.
In 1952, Rita Hayworth refused to report for work because she objected to the script.
48.
Rita Hayworth had invested heavily in her before she began an affair with the married Aly Khan, and it could have caused a backlash against her career and Columbia's success.
49.
Years after her film career had ended and long after Cohn had died, Rita Hayworth still resented her treatment by both him and Columbia.
50.
Rita Hayworth was very possessive of me as a person, he didn't want me to go out with anybody, have any friends.
51.
Rita Hayworth resented the fact that the studio had failed to train her to sing or even to encourage her to learn how to sing.
52.
Rita Hayworth was a top glamour girl in the 1940s, a pin-up girl for military servicemen and a beauty icon for women.
53.
Rita Hayworth reportedly changed her hair color eight times in eight movies.
54.
In 1949, Rita Hayworth's lips were voted best in the world by the Artists League of America.
55.
Rita Hayworth had a modeling contract with Max Factor to promote its Tru-Color lipsticks and Pan-Stik make-up.
56.
Rita Hayworth had affairs with several of her leading men, most notably with Victor Mature in 1942, during the filming of My Gal Sal.
57.
Rita Hayworth had two grandsons: Marc McKerrow by Rebecca Welles, who married and had children, and Andrew Ali Aga Khan Embiricos by Yasmin Aga Khan, who died unmarried.
58.
Rita Hayworth had an intermittent, long-term relationship with Glenn Ford, which started during the filming of Gilda in 1945.
59.
Peter revealed in his book that Rita Hayworth became pregnant during the filming of The Loves of Carmen and traveled to France to get an abortion.
60.
When Hayworth was 18, she married Edward C Judson, an oilman turned promoter who was more than twice her age.
61.
Rita Hayworth filed for divorce from him on February 24,1942, with a complaint of cruelty.
62.
Rita Hayworth noted to the press that his work took him to Oklahoma and Texas while she lived and worked in Hollywood.
63.
Rita Hayworth married Orson Welles on September 7,1943, during the run of The Mercury Wonder Show.
64.
In 1948, Rita Hayworth left her film career to marry Prince Aly Khan, a son of Sultan Mahommed Shah, Aga Khan III, the leader of the Ismaili community of Shia Islam.
65.
In 1951, while still married to Rita Hayworth, Khan was spotted dancing with the actress Joan Fontaine in the nightclub where he and Rita Hayworth had met.
66.
Rita Hayworth stayed at Lake Tahoe with their daughter, saying there was a threat the child would be kidnapped.
67.
Rita Hayworth filed for divorce from Khan on September 2,1951, on the grounds of "extreme cruelty, entirely mental in nature".
68.
Rita Hayworth once said she might convert to Islam, but did not.
69.
In January 1953, Rita Hayworth was granted a divorce from Aly Khan on the grounds of extreme mental cruelty.
70.
Rita Hayworth hoped Hayworth could influence the government and keep him in the United States.
71.
When Rita Hayworth took time off from attending his comeback performances in Philadelphia, the audiences sharply declined.
72.
Haymes's ex-wives demanded money while Rita Hayworth publicly bemoaned her own lack of alimony from Aly Khan.
73.
Rita Hayworth was short of money after her marriage to Haymes.
74.
Rita Hayworth had failed to gain child support from Aly Khan.
75.
Rita Hayworth sued Orson Welles for back payment of child support which she claimed had never been paid.
76.
Rita Hayworth began a relationship with film producer James Hill, whom she went on to marry on February 2,1958.
77.
Rita Hayworth put her in one of her last major films, Separate Tables.
78.
On September 1,1961, Rita Hayworth filed for divorce, alleging extreme mental cruelty.
79.
In 1972, the 54-year-old Rita Hayworth wanted to retire from acting, but she needed money.
80.
In January 1976, at London's Heathrow Airport, Rita Hayworth was removed from a TWA flight after having an angry outburst while traveling with her agent.
81.
Rita Hayworth's alcoholism hid symptoms of what was eventually understood to be Alzheimer's disease.
82.
Unbeknownst to her, Rita Hayworth helped to destigmatize a condition that can still embarrass victims and their families.
83.
In July 1981, Rita Hayworth's health had deteriorated to the point that a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that she should be placed under the care of her daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan of New York City.
84.
Rita Hayworth lived in an apartment at The San Remo on Central Park West adjoining that of her daughter, who arranged for her mother's care during her final years.
85.
Rita Hayworth recalled seeing Hayworth three years before at an event which the Reagans held for Frank Sinatra.
86.
Rita Hayworth was a lifelong Democrat who was an active member of the Hollywood Democratic Committee and was active in the campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the 1944 presidential election.
87.
Rita Hayworth was a Catholic whose marriage to Prince Aly Khan was deemed "illicit" by Pope Pius XII.
88.
Rita Hayworth died at age 68, from complications associated with Alzheimer's disease, on May 14,1987, at her home in Manhattan.
89.
Rita Hayworth was one of our country's most beloved stars.
90.
Rita Hayworth was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City.
91.
In 1978, at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC, Hayworth was presented with the inaugural National Screen Heritage Award of the National Film Society, a group that published American Classic Screen magazine.
92.
In 1999, Rita Hayworth was acknowledged as one of the top-25 greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood cinema in the American Film Institute's survey, AFI's 100 Years.
93.
The public disclosure and discussion of Rita Hayworth's illness drew international attention to Alzheimer's disease, which was little known at the time, and it helped to greatly increase federal funding for Alzheimer's research.
94.
Rita Hayworth is the hostess for the events and a major sponsor of Alzheimer's disease charities and awareness programs.
95.
The film I Remember Better When I Paint describes how Rita Hayworth took up painting while struggling with Alzheimer's.
96.
Rita Hayworth's name is mentioned in Tom Waits's song "Invitation to the Blues" from his 1976 album Small Change.
97.
Rita Hayworth is the main topic of the song, "Take, Take, Take" by the White Stripes and referenced in "White Moon"; both from their Get Behind Me Satan album, released in 2005.