The Highs of Gilda, the Lows of Mr. Evil: The Consecutive Tragedies and Lasting Legacy of Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino in Brooklyn, New York, on October 17th, 1918. Her Spanish-American father, Eduardo Cansino, performed in vaudeville as The Dancing Cansinos. Her mother, Volga, was a dancing girl in the Ziegfeld Follies.

Her mom wanted Rita to be an actress, but her dad insisted she become a dancer. Rita later said, “From the time I was three and a half… I was given dance lessons. Her father made her attend dance classes to fulfill his own dreams.

By the time she was five, Rita had landed a role in the Broadway production of The Greenwich Village Follies alongside her father. When she was eight, she appeared in Warner Brothers’ short film La Fiesta.

After her early brush with fame, Eduardo became fixated on turning his daughter into a star, so he moved the family to Hollywood so Rita would have every opportunity available. Eduardo opened a dance studio in Los Angeles, where his clients included actors James Cagney and Jean Harlow.

Rita completed ninth grade at school but never went to high school. Instead, her father revived his old dance group, The Dancing Cansinos, with his 12-year-old daughter as his dance partner. He dyed her hair black to make her look older and give her a more Latin appearance.

Eventually, Eduardo moved the family close to the Mexican border — to Chula Vista, California — to perform in Tijuana’s nightclubs. This was because Rita was too young to perform in California.

On stage, Eduardo introduced his provocatively dressed daughter as his wife. Off stage, he constantly belittled her and criticized her looks. All the money they made dancing he spent on gambling and booze.

Rita had to catch fish for their dinner, and if she couldn’t — she would go hungry, and her father would beat her. As Rita entered her teenage years, Eduardo became the worst kind of monster. Rita’s mother was forced to sleep with Rita to stop her husband’s nightly visits to their daughter’s bed.

One night, Rita caught the eye of talent scouts in the audience. At 16, she had a small role in the film Cruz Diablo, with her on-screen charisma landing her a part in the movie Caliente one year later. Then, while performing alongside her father at the Caliente Club, Rita caught the eye of the head of the Fox Film Corporation, Winfield Sheehan.

Sheehan gave Rita a screen test and was so impressed that he immediately signed her to a six-month contract under her new stage name, Rita Cansino.

Rita danced in Dante’s Inferno, and had speaking parts in Under the Pampas Moon, Charlie Chan in Egypt, and Paddy O’Day. However, when Fox merged with 20th Century Studios and new studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck canceled her contract, Eduardo placed his daughter’s career in the hands of oilman-turned-manager Edward C. Judson to keep the money coming in.

Judson wrangled her a seven-year contract with Columbia Studios. Boss Harry Cohn felt Rita was too exotic, so he made her change her surname to Hayworth.

To make Rita look more American, the studio forced her to undergo electrolysis to push her hairline back, broadening her forehead and lending her face a new, less exotic shape. Next, they enforced a strict diet to minimize her curves and made her dye her from brown to bright red.

Thanks to her father, the young actress was already insecure about her looks, and she later explained, “I naturally am very shy…and I suffer from an inferiority complex.”

After suffering years of her father’s terrible mistreatment, Rita would do anything to escape his clutches. So, in 1937, when she was 18, she eloped to Las Vegas with her greedy, manipulative manager, Edward Charles Judson. At the time, he was 41 — more than twice her age.

While she married Judson to escape her father’s clutches, Rita was in for the shock of her life. Edward turned out to be just as monstrous as Eduardo, her father, who was enraged by the marriage.

Soon after the marriage, Rita discovered her husband had been married twice before and had tricked her into marriage. When he wasn’t working away in the oilfields of Oklahoma and Texas, Judson intimidated his young bride to get what he wanted, using her as a commodity. He even tried pimping her out to make money.

Judson once tried to get his wife to sleep with high-powered men to advance her chances of landing starring roles. One of these men was Columbia Studio’s boss, Harry Cohn.

Outwardly, Harry Cohn (pictured) championed his female stars, boosting their careers and appearing to help them break Hollywood’s glass ceiling. But behind the scenes, there are many stories that the Columbia boss was the precursor to Harvey Weinstein.

He had been grooming Rita Hayworth from a young age, and she had to turn down his unwanted advances constantly. After many attempts to intimidate the young actress into sleeping with him, Harry Cohn started holding back Rita’s salary for her insubordination.

Edward Judson even arranged for his wife and Harry Cohn to be alone on his yacht. Rita rarely stood up for herself, but this time, she point-blank refused to sleep with Cohn. He exacted his revenge by bugging Rita’s dressing room, having her followed, and famously using the restroom in front of her.

Like we said, he was a real Harvey Weinstein. The studio boss yelled, insulted, and belittled her, but this time, Rita used her talent to teach her boss and her husband a lesson…

Between 1937 and 1941, the flame-haired actress appeared in massive films like Only Angels Have Wings opposite Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. This role landed her a cover story in Life magazine, which made her the talk of Hollywood.

She followed up with roles in Music in My Heart, The Lady in Question, Angels Over Broadway, and The Strawberry Blonde opposite Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and James Cagney. Despite the men causing chaos in her life, Rita Hayworth had become a big name in Hollywood.

By 1942, Edward C. Judson had tried pimping her out, stolen her money, blackmailed her, and transferred her property into his name. Rita informed her domineering husband that she wanted a divorce, but he refused.

She later explained, “He helped me with my career… and helped himself to my money.” After he said he would do her “great bodily harm” should she ever leave him, Rita agreed to pay Judson $12,000 to set her free. She finally filed for divorce in February 1942.

While Fred Astaire (pictured) and Ginger Rogers are the most famous dancers from 1940s musicals, Astaire once admitted his favorite dance partner of all time was Rita Hayworth. He said she “danced with trained perfection and individuality” and was impressed that she could easily learn complicated dance routines during her lunch break.

Rita and Fred’s dance routines created magic on the screen. Years later, she said, “I guess the only jewels of my life were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire … And Cover Girl, too.”

After Hayworth escaped Judson, Rita started dating actor Victor Mature while filming My Gal Sal in 1942. Her ex-husband soon backed off when he learned his ex was dating the muscle-bound actor. But Rita was broke.

To avoid her ex-husband’s threats of violence, she had given him every penny she had. At her lowest point, Rita was so desperate she had to rely on friends to feed her. But Rita Hayworth’s luck was about to change for the better.

Hayworth threw herself into her work and earned back the money that Judson blackmailed out of her. By 1944, Rita earned top billing in the musical Cover Girl opposite Gene Kelly, making her the first of only six women to dance on screen with both Kelly and Astaire.

Her popularity skyrocketed with a Life magazine shoot in which she wore a satin nightgown. The risque spread was a massive hit with World War II servicemen and prompted film executives to see her in another light.

Rita first met Orson Welles in 1941, and the genius young actor and director later said he instantly fell in love with her. The two began dating, but Orson soon realized that the confident, sassy, strong woman Rita seemed like on screen was all smoke and mirrors.

While Rita was enamored by Orson Welles, he grew frustrated that she was so shy and introverted. Orson Welles tried to bring timid Rita out of her shell, using comedy or magic tricks, pretending to read her mind.

Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles married on September 7th, 1943, before the newlyweds returned to work a few hours later. Though he loved her, Orson was terrified of commitment.

Rita later explained, “During the entire period of our marriage, he showed no interest in establishing a home. When I suggested purchasing a home, he told me he didn’t want the responsibility.” She continued, “Mr. Welles told me he never should have married in the first place; that it interfered with his freedom in his way of life.”

Since the marriage was her first relationship with a man who wasn’t a monster, Hayworth was determined to be the perfect wife. She read Orson’s favorite books, listened to his favorite music, and even changed her political persuasion.

But while Rita thought this was the best way to please her husband, her behavior backfired on her big time. Orson perceived her actions as needy, insecure, and unable to think for herself. Frustrated, he threw himself into his work… and the arms of other women.

Soon, Orson’s wandering eye and libido saw him fall into bed with actresses like Judy Garland and socialites like Gloria Vanderbilt. Rita may have been codependent, submissive, and timid, but she wasn’t stupid.

She knew her husband saw other women, so she tried to keep her marriage together by cementing their relationship with a baby. She soon fell pregnant — and on December 14th, 1944 — Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles welcomed their only child, a daughter they named Rebecca Welles.

In 1946, Rita starred in Charles Vidor’s film noir Gilda opposite Glenn Ford (pictured). The film was a box office smash, and the role transformed Hayworth into a femme fatale and a cultural icon.

However, while most outgoing actresses would have relished a seductive new image, being a sassy screen siren weighed heavily on Rita’s shoulders. She once described how her new image hugely impacted her relationships with men by saying, “Men go to bed with Gilda, but wake up with me.”

In the Pacific Ocean’s Bikini Atoll, servicemen nicknamed one nuclear bomb ‘Gilda’ and painted Rita’s image on the side to compliment the actress’s ‘bombshell’ status. We’ll let Orson tell the story — “Rita used to fly into terrible rages all the time, but the angriest was when she found out that they’d put her on the atom bomb. Rita almost went insane; she was so angry…”

Welles continued, “She wanted to go to Washington to hold a press conference, but Harry Cohn wouldn’t let her because it would be unpatriotic.”

In a last-ditch effort to save the marriage, Hayworth appeared in her husband’s next thriller. Without the studio’s approval, Welles cut her famous long red hair short and dyed it platinum blonde. The Lady From Shanghai flopped, and Harry Cohn blamed on her image change, saying audiences only responded to Rita’s fiery red hair.

The flop was the final straw for Rita, and she filed for divorce in 1947. She took the break-up badly, but luckily, she had a shoulder to cry on.

Though married to Orson while she made Gilda, Rita Hayworth developed an intense chemistry with co-star Glenn Ford (pictured, middle). In the film, Gilda knocked Ford’s character’s front teeth out, but off-screen, they loved each other deeply. Hayworth and Ford never married but had a 40-year on-off relationship.

When Rita became frail, Glenn bought a house next door to her Beverly Hills home so he could visit and take care of her. But Glenn Ford wasn’t the only man Rita Hayworth had an affair with…

The real tragedy of Rita Hayworth’s life was all the heartbreak, unsuccessful marriages, and affairs. When asked about her past relationships, she admitted, “I’m a good and gentle person, but I am attracted to mean personalities.” She also said, “All I just wanted was to be loved.”

Rita also had brief encounters with some of Hollywood’s most famous leading men of the day — including Errol Flynn, Anthony Quinn, Tony Martin, and eccentric billionaire director and aviator Howard Hughes.

While filming her next film, The Loves of Carmen, with Glenn Ford — her first under the banner of her own production company, The Beckworth Corporation — Rita fell pregnant with Glenn Ford’s baby. Back then, having a child out of wedlock would have meant Hollywood would never have hired her again.

So, in 1948, Rita boarded a plane and flew across the pond to secretly have surgery in France. There were complications, and Rita nearly died, but thankfully, she survived.

After recuperating, Rita went to the Cannes Film Festival, where she met exotic, womanizing Prince Aly Khan — the son of Sultan Mohammed Shah, Aga Khan III. He had first seen her in Gilda and promised himself he would snag the flame-haired vixen.

So, when the prince learned his crush was in Cannes, he arranged to be introduced to her at a party. Rita became instantly intrigued by his royal status and passion for life.

With two failed marriages behind her, Rita was reluctant to fall for another renowned womanizer. So, when Prince Aly Khan proposed marriage after just a few weeks, she refused. However, Khan’s mind could not be swayed, and when Rita flew back to Hollywood, he rented the house right across the street.

Khan showered her with gifts, flowers, and attention, and Rita convinced herself she was in love. Once her divorce from Orson Welles was finalized, she fell pregnant and agreed to marry her exotic prince.

Racehorse owner Prince Khan planned for Rita to leave her Hollywood career behind when she married him, but she came to her senses and got cold feet. The Prince’s reputation as a renowned lover worried her, and she soon realized she was still in love with Orson.

So she sent Welles a telegram asking him to meet her urgently. Her concerned ex-husband flew from Rome to Los Angeles, and when he arrived at her Hollywood home, he was in for the shock of his life.

When Orson walked into Rita’s home, he was surrounded by champagne and scented candles, and Rita was wearing nothing but a negligee. While such a romantic scene would have easily seduced most red-blooded men, Orson Welles was not impressed.

Her ex-husband found Rita as needy as ever and knew all her seductive tricks. So, to avoid her charms and a reunion, he convinced her to marry Khan, saying she could always divorce him if things didn’t work out…

Rita married Khan on May 27th, 1949. However, not long after she gave birth to their daughter — Yasmin Aga Khan, in Switzerland — her third husband started cheating on her. Khan was even spotted dancing with Joan Fontaine. Rita became so jealous that she became suspicious whenever he left the house.

Khan’s philandering ways and her subsequent paranoia and jealousy caused the marriage to soon fall apart. So, she took Yasmin to the USA and filed for divorce, citing “extreme cruelty, entirely mental in nature.”

Prince Khan wanted Yasmin to be raised in his faith, so he offered Rita a million dollars if she would allow their daughter to live in Europe with him for three months a year.

Hayworth rejected the deal, saying, “There isn’t any amount of money in the entire world for which it is worth sacrificing this child’s privilege… I’m going to give it to Yasmin regardless of what it costs.” Rita feared Khan would kidnap Yasmin, and the judge granted a divorce on grounds of extreme mental cruelty.

In 1953, Rita met a singer named Dick Haymes, whose nickname was Mr. Evil. Once, she left her children with a babysitter while she and Dick went on a road trip. When Rebecca was absent from school and a reporter spotted the children digging through a trash can, social services intervened.

The judge was lenient on Rita, allowing her children to remain in the home as long as a social worker visited every couple of months.

Dick Haymes owed a ton of cash to the Internal Revenue Service and his ex-wives, so the immigration department threatened to deport him to his native Argentina. Dick didn’t take this at all well and hit the bottle hard.

However, Rita used her star status to convince the government that she would take responsibility for his US citizenship and his many debts. Then, in 1953, Rita married her fourth husband, Dick Haymes, in Las Vegas — 24 hours after he divorced Nora Eddington.

Almost as soon as they tied the knot, the relationship became tumultuous. Dick insisted she only make movies with him, and her career went downhill. One of Dick’s ex-wives sued him for unpaid alimony, and the couple hid in a Manhattan hotel room for 24 hours while sheriff’s deputies waited outside to arrest Haymes.

Rita ended up paying most of Haymes’s debts. After a hideous two years together, Rita finally left him after he struck her in the face at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles.

In 1958, Rita married film producer James Hill, and he might have been the biggest monster of them all. In his autobiography, Charlton Heston recalls “the single most embarrassing evening of my life” at a Spanish restaurant with Hayworth and Hill.

Heston wrote that James Hill heaped “obscene abuse” on Rita until she was “reduced to a helpless flood of tears, her face buried in her hands.” Charlton also wrote that it was a “marital massacre” and describes how he almost slugged James in the face.

By the late 1960s, Hayworth was famous for public outbursts, which people blamed on her reliance on booze. However, Rita was also experiencing terrible memory loss. By the time she made The Wrath of God in 1972, she had to shoot scenes one line at a time.

It took doctors two decades to understand that Rita’s memory loss was due to Alzheimer’s Disease. Not much was known about the disease, but Rita (pictured with daughter Yasmin) used her fame to become the first face of the Alzheimer’s crusade.

Orson Welles recalled meeting Rita in 1980 — “I came over to her table, and I saw that she was very beautiful, very reposed looking, and didn’t know me at first. After about four minutes of speaking, I could see that she realized who I was, and she began to cry quietly.”

In 1981, Rita was judged unable to care for herself. So, Yasmin became her mother’s conservator, moving her to New York and hiring 24/7 nursing care. Yasmin said, “She’s still beautiful. But it’s a shell.”

By February 1987, Rita had lapsed into a semicoma. She passed away on May 14th, 1987, at her Manhattan home. She was 68 years old. Her funeral took place at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, where her old flame, Glenn Ford, was one of the pallbearers.

Before he passed away two years earlier, Orson Welles called Rita “one of the dearest and sweetest women that ever lived…I was lucky enough to have been with her longer than any of the other men in her life.”

Flame-haired vixen Rita Hayworth was one of the silver screen’s most beloved and talented stars. Her father was a monster, and her personal life was a struggle, marrying four more terrible men… and Orson Welles! After her passing, Rita became a beacon of hope for those who have Alzheimer’s.

Her diagnosis helped destigmatize the disease and raised funds for research. Now, her daughter Yasmin (pictured) is the president of Alzheimer’s Disease International and hosts the Rita Hayworth Gala every year.