RITA HAYWORTH (1918-87)
As a teenager Margarita Cansino (Rita Hayworth) was sexually abused by her abominable father, a Latin dancer named Eduardo Cansino, who not only abused her himself, but rented her out to his cronies. When she confided this to her husband Orson Welles he was rightly appalled. ‘He was a terrible man and she hated him’, said Welles. In her later years Rita took a lot of lovers, a lot of fleeting moments, as she sought to convince herself that she was still desirable. The ravages of Alzheimer’s surely impacted on her decision-making as well. It was a horrible, sad end for one of the great beauties of the American cinema.
1936-42 Edward Judson met Rita in 1936 and they dated for about 16 months before marrying in 1937. The union ended five years later. Like her father, Judson hawked his attractive young wife to a lot of studio executives as he endeavoured to push his meal-ticket to the top of the Hollywood pile. Both he and her father threatened to expose her past if she refused to co-operate.
1941 Anthony Quinn and Rita were an item for about three months in 1941. They met on the set of Blood and Sand.
1942-43 Victor Mature co-starred with Rita in My Gal Sal (1942) and dated for about a year before going their separate ways. In truth, she was beginning to enjoy having the one and only Orson Welles courting her. A few years later, after walking out on her philandering husband Prince Aly Khan, she would again find her way into Vic’s bed for a time.
1942-47 Orson Welles took one look at the iconic Bob Landry 1941, WW2 pin-up of Rita, the one in which she is kneeling on a bed in a black and white negligee, and decided he had to meet her. They dated for 20 months from 1942 until 1943 before marrying in September. In December ’44 they had a child, but the marriage folded in November 1947. Orson was a compulsive adulterer. Even while Rita was giving birth to their child he was cheating with Judy Garland, Gloria Vanderbilt and who knows how many prostitutes.
1946 Errol Flynn hooked up with Rita in 1946 when her marriage to Welles was all but over. He loaned her husband the use of his yacht Zaca for his movie The Lady from Shanghai. Flynn and Rita were photographed skiing and in Dodge City together. No sign of Orson anywhere. He had finished with Rita.
1946 Singer Tony Martin enjoyed a brief relationship with her in 1946 as well. It began a few months after the birth of her child with Welles, but it didn’t last.
1947 When David Niven’s wife was tragically killed in a fall down some stairs, he went on a sexual rampage, hoping to quash his grief by seeking love wherever he could find it. Rita became one of a long line of lovers he took at that time.
1947 Teddy Stauffer was a minor actor/band leader who was with Rita from June to November 1947. It has been said that David Niven ended his tryst with her after reading headlines describing Stauffer scaling the exterior of the Hotel Lancaster in Paris after Rita had locked him out of their room.
1947-53 She first met Prince Aly Khan in 1947 and they dated for two years before marrying in 1949. Although they had a daughter (Princess Yasmin) in December 1949, nothing was ever going to save a marriage in which the husband took women to his bed whenever he chose to. He had been educated in imsak, the art of indefinite postponement of ejaculation, in the brothels of Cairo when he was a boy. In bed he had few equals and Rita had always enjoyed sex. Expert lover or not, she divorced him in 1953.
1948 Rita and Glenn Ford made five movies together. According to Ford’s son Peter, they became lovers while making The Loves of Carmen (1948). She became pregnant with his child and had an abortion. They remained close friends all their lives and even lived next door to each other in their senior years.
1949 Stephen Crane is probably best remembered today as the ex-husband of Lana Turner and the father of her daughter Cheryl Crane, the girl who allegedly stabbed to death her mother’s boyfriend, hoodlum Johnny Stompanato, in 1958. Crane and Rita had a fling in 1949.
1952 Kirk Douglas added Rita’s scalp to his already full belt in 1952. Their interlude was fleeting. Neither Kirk nor any of her other lovers could perform like Aly Khan in bed, so she went back to him (yet again) simply for the sex.
1952 Matador Luis Miguel Dominguin was involved with Rita for about nine months in 1952; in the months between her leaving the Prince and then divorcing him.
1952 Known ladies’ man Vincent Sherman directed Rita in Affair in Trinidad (1952) after she scurried back to Hollywood because of her troubled marriage to the Prince. Although married all his life, Sherman built a reputation for seducing his leading ladies – Bette Davis and Joan Crawford included. He and Rita hit it off at once and enjoyed a happy affair for several months.
1952-55 Dick Haymes was an Argentinian actor with a drinking problem and known by the not too flattering nickname of Mr. Evil. Nevertheless, Rita must have seen something in him because they dated for almost two years before she agreed to be his wife. When he wasn’t squandering her money he was beating her up. Not that she had a lot of money in the first place. The Prince had happily spent most of her fortune without touching much of his own. In 1955, after Haymes had blackened both her eyes, she finally got the message and left him.
1956-57 So-called comedian George Jessel was almost 60 when he latched onto Rita in 1956. Scoring with beautiful women was his specialty and she lasted a little longer than most. He moved on after about a year.
1957-61 Director James Hill married Rita in February 1958 while she was rebounding from the Prince for about the sixth time. This was another match made in Hell. They fought tooth and nail, almost from day one.
1962 Gary Merrill was Bette Davis’s ex-wife. And spent ten years with her. He and Rita began seeing each other in 1950 and their relationship lasted four years. His drinking was the primary destroyer in both relationships.
1965 Gilbert Roland was approaching 60 when he entered into a brief relationship with 46 year-old Rita in 1965. It was a short-lived affair.
1972 Frank Langella was 34 when he played opposite 54 year-old Rita in a western called The Wrath of God. For a few weeks he slept with her in her rooms, but he left when filming concluded. ‘Don’t leave me. I gotta have a man with me’, she pleaded. But he left anyway.
I am watching Pal Joey and was wondering if Rita ever had an affair with Frank Sinatra. I don’t see any mention of this and was surprised. Glad to find your blog though.
I’m not sure the timing of the affair with Errol Flynn was accurate, although I would not be surprised if there is evidence that they hooked up at some other point. The skiing pic of the mountains near Dodge City was part of a press junket for Dodge City and included a lot of other actors, particularly at the ski resort where that pic was taken in about 1939. There were many others around them when this pic was taken, and there is also video. They were all horsing around throwing snowballs, etc.
Thankyou for your comments, Shelly. I used that shot of Errol and Rita because there are few (if any) of them together, but I stand by my story that they had a brief fling. Rita herself often said she needed to be with a man, especially after meaningful relationships ended. It appears that she hooked up with Flynn whose record indicates he would not have looked a gift horse in the mouth without taking advantage of the situation. I feel deeply for Rita. She had a terrible personal life in which she was used by so many unscrupulous men (commencing with her low-life father). I have no doubt a fling with Errol would have been just another desperate plea for affection from a lady who never seemed to meet the right guy. I appreciate your comments. Thanks again.
Eddy Judson Rita’s first husband was actually the bodyguard /chaffeur for my great uncle Robert A Josey who was a very handsome, very smart, and very rich Texas oilman and close friend of Howard Hughes. He dated Rita and was engaged to marry her in 1936, but got Parkinson’s and Eddy stepped in. Eddy was a good liar and convinced Rita that he was best friends with my uncle rather than an employee and married Rita when my uncle became bedridden in Houston. The marriage was a family joke which l first heard in the summer of 1946 in La Jolla California where we were vacationing. All our family was crazy about Rita, but very saddened that she had been bamboozled by Eddie. The reason Eddie’s background is so hazy is because Eddie did not want the truth exposed that he was actually a chauffeur/bodyguard/friend of my great uncle Robert who is actually an extremely impressive man who sadly had to give up Rita because of his Parkinson’s disease. He was an extremely smart and kind man who didn’t want to expose Eddie because he did like him as a friend as well as an employee. Poor Rita because Eddie really exploited her, but he had no income other than my uncle and Rita.
Aly’s specialty of holding off seems a bit lost in today’s world. Most women want to know that their charms cause a loss of the senses of their partner and not someone who continues to wait and wait and wait. They either think they aren’t performing well or their suitor is bisexual.
I can see back then how that might have made a bit more sense when women were rarely pleasured correctly. Great read, thank you for your research!
Glad you enjoyed it, Freedrick. Thank you.
All of this stuff is fiction. All the books, the biographies, the magazine articles, the accounts by sons and daughters, “friends”, and everyone else – all fiction. All dramatisations based on scant truth.
That’s right Mrs. Tooley, EVERYBODY lies EXCEPT the studio image builders. The only person who knows the truth is YOU. I do not WRITE just to sell my books. This website has been operating for many years and it is FREE. I make nothing, ZERO from it, and I work damned hard to get my facts as right as possible. OF COURSE, I occasionally make an error. Most historians do. But there is far more likelihood that the sources I scan are a lot more accurate than the utter BULLSHIT spouted by the studios down the decades. I suggest you stop reading my articles and invest in a few thousand movie magazines or studio blurbs. Then you will be happy and I will be happy.
Rita seemed like she spent her life searching for a happiness that she didn’t really know how to capture or hold onto. She chose all the wrong type men most the time too. Climbers that were searching for their own next conquest and cared nothing for Rita as a person. But growing up to be valued merely for sex and what it could provide for her father had to leave psychological damage that years of therapy might not have helped unravel. I feel very sad when I see how beautiful and how gifted she was in some ways but then how unfulfilled and used she must have felt inside. She was lovely and deserved better in life.
I could not agree with you more, Flo. There are many terribly sad stories from Hollywood’s history. She is just one of them.
Love u Alan u are an amazing man
How very sad. So beautiful and such a tragic life. All those men and not one of them were good or true. Seems that’s a curse of very attractive women. In my opinion and what ive seen in my life, it seems as though women who are just average or perhaps even unattractive to most and often have a bossy or bitchy personality always seem to marry the best men. Men with food values. Men who treat them like queens and are ALWAYS honest & faithful. Never have been able to understand why that is??
I could be wrong, Anne, but I believe most beautiful women are pursued by men who value beauty above all other qualities, hence the shallowness of their relationships are almost guaranteed, for beauty, as we know, fades quickly. Those men who settle for less attractive, even plain, partners, see something lasting in their choices. Something that the years will not diminish. Occasionally, beautiful people with beautiful natures come along, of course. There are exceptions to every rule. Just my opinion and it could be totally incorrect. Thank you for your note.
I have been reading Glenn Ford’s book written by his son, Peter. It doesn’t go into great detail about Rita & Glenn, but his son has said Glenn kept diaries and tapes since he was 16. They were lovers, on and off, friends, etc. for 40 years till she died. She leaned on him a lot. I believe almost all actors had affairs and multiple marriages back in the old Hollywood days. Rita had a very troubled life, starting with her father.
I cannot imagine Ford’s son declaring that his dad and Rita were lovers for a long while unless it was true. And you are right about Rita’s troubled life as well, Jen. Her father was pimping her around for most of her teenage years, yet I believe she cared a great deal for him. How sad.