Rita Hayworth

Designing Someone Else's Identity

Margarita Carmen Cansino did not choose to become a movie star. Her father pulled her out of school so she could dance with him in the casinos of Tijuana, since in California she was too young to work. That dark-haired teenager with Spanish features was an exceptional dancer, but her destiny was in the hands of the Hollywood studio executives.

In 1937, she signed her first major contract with Columbia Pictures. Harry Cohn, the head of the studio, decided that Margarita didn't sell tickets. He ordered a radical physical makeover that included painful electrolysis sessions to raise her forehead and widen her hairline. He also changed her last name to her mother's and dyed her hair the fiery red that would follow her forever.

And Cohn's invention worked all too well.

During World War II, her face appeared in magazines and on the bombs falling over the Pacific. In 1941, she filmed Blood and Sand, and American audiences accepted the actress's new image without questioning her roots. But the woman on screen had nothing to do with the person who came home every night after fourteen-hour shooting days.

The Glove That Broke Everything

In 1946, Gilda was released, and the making of her legend reached its peak. The famous scene where she removes a glove while singing was planned down to the millimeter to get around the censorship of the era. The black satin dress had a rigid internal corset because the actress had just become a mother, and the studio wanted to hide any trace of her real body.

The industry never forgave her for wanting to be herself.

Rita Hayworth used to say that men went to bed with Gilda and woke up with her. That line summed up her frustration with a public image that consumed her private life. Her marriages to Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan were tabloid fodder and fed a femme fatale narrative she deeply despised. Because deep down, she was still the dancer who only wanted her father's approval.

In 1947, she worked under Welles in The Lady from Shanghai. The director decided to cut her hair and dye it platinum blonde to break away from her Columbia image. Harry Cohn was furious at the result, and the film was a box office failure at the time. Today critics regard the movie as a masterpiece of film noir, but that year it almost ended her career.

The Arrival of Forgetfulness

From the 1950s on, her star began to fade in the eyes of newer generations. In 1953, she filmed Miss Sadie Thompson, trying to win back audiences with a rawer role. But debts and personal problems forced her to take lower-quality work in European productions that did little justice to her talent as an actress.

And then came the silence.

During the filming of The Wrath of God in 1972, her memory problems became unbearable. The actress could not remember a single line of dialogue, and the crew assumed it was due to excessive drinking. No one knew she was suffering the first symptoms of a disease that did not yet have a common name in newspaper headlines.

In 1980, doctors confirmed that she had Alzheimer's. That diagnosis helped clean up her public image after years of unfair rumors about her supposed alcoholism. Her daughter, Yasmin Aga Khan, took over her care and organized the first charity galas to raise funds against the disease. In 1981, a Los Angeles court granted legal guardianship of the actress to her daughter, given her total inability to manage her financial affairs.