39 Facts About Susan Hayward

1.

Susan Hayward secured a film contract and played several small supporting roles over the next few years.

2.

Susan Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner on June 30,1917, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the youngest of three children to Ellen and Walter Marrenner.

3.

Susan Hayward had an older sister, Florence, and an older brother, Walter Jr.

4.

Susan Hayward was educated at Public School 181 and graduated from the Girls' Commercial High School in June 1935.

5.

Susan Hayward began her career as a model, traveling to Hollywood in 1937 to try out for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.

6.

Susan Hayward had bit parts in Hollywood Hotel, The Amazing Dr Clitterhouse, and The Sisters, as well as in a short, Campus Cinderella.

7.

Susan Hayward's first sizeable role was with Ronald Reagan in Girls on Probation, where she was a strong 10th in billing.

8.

Susan Hayward was in Comet Over Broadway, but returned to unbilled and began posing for pinup "cheesecake" publicity photos, something she and most actresses despised, but under her contract she had no choice.

9.

Susan Hayward had her first breakthrough in the part of Isobel in Beau Geste opposite Gary Cooper and Ray Milland.

10.

Susan Hayward held the small, but important, haunting love of youth role as recalled by the Geste brothers while they searched for a valuable sapphire known as "the blue water" during desert service in the Foreign Legion; the film was hugely successful.

11.

Susan Hayward went to Columbia for a supporting role alongside Ingrid Bergman in Adam Had Four Sons, then to Republic Pictures for Sis Hopkins with Judy Canova and Bob Crosby.

12.

Susan Hayward was in the short A Letter from Bataan and supported Goddard and Fred MacMurray in The Forest Rangers.

13.

Susan Hayward was next in Paramount's all-star musical review Star Spangled Rhythm that featured its nonmusical contract players.

14.

Susan Hayward appeared with William Holden in Young and Willing, a Paramount film distributed by UA.

15.

Susan Hayward was in Republic's Hit Parade of 1943, her singing voice dubbed by Jeanne Darrell.

16.

Susan Hayward starred in the film version of The Hairy Ape for UA.

17.

Susan Hayward subsequently worked for Wanger on The Lost Moment and Tap Roots.

18.

At Universal Susan Hayward was in The Saxon Charm and she did Tulsa for Wanger.

19.

Susan Hayward went over to 20th Century Fox to make House of Strangers for director Joseph Mankiewicz, beginning a long association with that studio.

20.

Susan Hayward stayed at that studio to make the western Rawhide with Tyrone Power, and the romantic drama I Can Get It for You Wholesale.

21.

Susan Hayward then starred in three massive successes: David and Bathsheba with Gregory Peck, the most popular film of the year; With a Song in My Heart, a biopic of Jane Froman, which earned her an Oscar nomination; and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, with Peck and Ava Gardner.

22.

Susan Hayward then starred with Clark Gable in Soldier of Fortune, a CinemaScope film that was a box office miss.

23.

Jane Froman's voice was recorded and used for the film as Susan Hayward acted out the songs.

24.

Susan Hayward did a comedy with Kirk Douglas, Top Secret Affair which flopped.

25.

Susan Hayward made Thunder in the Sun with Jeff Chandler, a mediocre wagon train picture about French Basque pioneers, which was a modest success financially, and then Woman Obsessed at Fox.

26.

In 1961, Susan Hayward starred as a shrewd working girl who becomes the wife of the state's next governor and ultimately takes over the office herself in Ada.

27.

Susan Hayward was reunited with Joseph Mankiewicz in The Honey Pot.

28.

Susan Hayward received good reviews for her performance at Caesars Palace in the Las Vegas production of Mame that opened in December 1968.

29.

Susan Hayward was replaced by Celeste Holm in March 1969 after her voice gave out and she had to leave the production.

30.

Susan Hayward continued to act into the early 1970s, when she was diagnosed with brain cancer.

31.

Susan Hayward appeared in the TV movie Heat of Anger and the western film The Revengers with William Holden.

32.

Susan Hayward shot her scenes on a sound stage with co-star Clark Gable in Hollywood.

33.

In 1957, Susan Hayward married Floyd Eaton Chalkley, commonly known as Eaton Chalkley, a successful Georgia rancher and businessman who had worked as a federal agent.

34.

Susan Hayward became a popular figure in the area in the late 1950s.

35.

Susan Hayward went into mourning and did little acting for several years.

36.

Susan Hayward took up residence in Florida, because she preferred not to live in her Georgia home without her husband.

37.

Susan Hayward had met McGuire, an acquaintance of Chalkley, in Rome eight years prior.

38.

Susan Hayward's doctor found a lung tumor in March 1972 that metastasized and, after a seizure in April 1973, she was diagnosed with brain metastases.

39.

Susan Hayward has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6251 Hollywood Boulevard.