Rita Hayworth [Actress]

[visitor42]

Truly stunning.

[lucianodel]

[HWBL]

^So? It was a well known fact that she got a complete, albeit sans PS, make-over, as I mentioned in an earlier post:

Margarita Carmen Cansino, born in 1918 to a mother of Irish descent and a Spanish father. Became a model and dancer, made her movie debut in 1935. Hollywood dyed her black hair brown at first and later red and moved back her hairline to give her more of a forehead. She got the total make-over, including a new name "Rita Hayworth".

It's not like she was ugly before all that. Look what they made of Greta Garbo, also without PS, just new teeth, same as Clark Gable.

[BlameItOnVanity]

One of the most stunning women I've ever seen

[BITTER]

It wasn't that she was unattractive, not at all. They just wanted to make her less ethnic.

[Yasmine-Khan]

Rita was hot. Was she Mexican?

[BITTER]

Rita was hot. Was she Mexican?

From Wiki:
Hayworth was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1918 as Margarita Carmen Cansino, the oldest child of two dancers, Eduardo Cansino, Sr., from Castilleja de la Cuesta, a little town near Seville, Spain,[3] and Volga Hayworth, an American of Irish-English descent who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies.[4] The Catholic couple had married in 1917. They also had two sons: Eduardo, Jr. and Vernon.[4][5]
Margarita's father wanted her to become a professional dancer, while her mother hoped she would become an actress.[6] Her paternal grandfather Antonio Cansino was renowned as a Spanish classical dancer; he popularized the bolero and his dancing school in Madrid was world famous.[7] Rita later recalled,

From the time I was three and a half ... as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons."[8] I didn't like it very much ... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood.[9]

She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex, where she was taught by her uncle Angel Cansino. She performed publicly from the age of six.[4] In 1926 at the age of eight, she was featured in La Fiesta, a short film for Warner Bros..[4]

In 1927, her father took the family to Hollywood. He believed that dancing could be featured in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio,[4] where he taught such Hollywood luminaries as James Cagney and Jean Harlow.[citation needed] During the Great Depression, he lost all his investments, as musicals were no longer in vogue and commercial interest in his dancing classes waned. He partnered with his daughter to form "The Dancing Cansinos". Since under California law, Margarita was too young to work in nightclubs and bars, her father took her with him to work across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. In the early 1930s, it was a popular tourist spot for people from Los Angeles.[4] Due to her working, Cansino never graduated from high school; she completed ninth grade at Hamilton High in Los Angeles.

At the age of 16, Cansino took a bit part in the film Cruz Diablo (1934), which led to another in In Caliente (1935) with the Mexican actress Dolores del Río.[4] Cansino danced with her father in such nightspots as the Foreign and the Caliente clubs. Winfield Sheehan, the head of the Fox Film Corporation, saw her dancing at the Caliente Club and quickly arranged for Hayworth to do a screen test a week later. Impressed by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract at Fox, under the name Rita Cansino, the first of name changes for her film career...

During her time at Fox, Cansino appeared in five pictures, in non-notable roles. By the end of her six-month contract, Fox had merged into 20th Century Fox, with Darryl F. Zanuck serving as the executive producer. Dismissing Sheehan's interest in Cansino, Zanuck did not renew her contract. Feeling that Cansino had screen potential, the salesman and promoter Edward C. Judson, whom she would marry in 1936, got her the lead roles in several independent films and arranged a screen test with Columbia Pictures. The studio head Harry Cohn signed Cansino to a long-term contract, and cast her in small roles in Columbia features.

Often cast as the exotic foreigner, Cansino appeared in several roles in 1935: in Dante's Inferno, with Spencer Tracy; and Paddy O'Day, in which she played a Russian dancer. She was an Argentinian in Under the Pampas Moon and an Egyptian beauty in Charlie Chan in Egypt. In 1936 she took her first starring role as a "Latin type" in Human Cargo.[4]

Cohn argued that Cansino's image was too Mediterranean, which reduced her opportunities to being cast in "exotic" roles, more limited in number. With Cohn and Judson's encouragement, Hayworth changed her hair color to dark red and her name to Rita Hayworth. She had electrolysis to raise her hairline and broaden the appearance of her forehead. By using her mother's maiden name, she led people to see her British-American ancestry and became a classic "American" pin-up.[4]

[Yasmine-Khan]

From Wiki:
Hayworth was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1918 as Margarita Carmen Cansino, the oldest child of two dancers, Eduardo Cansino, Sr., from Castilleja de la Cuesta, a little town near Seville, Spain,[3] and Volga Hayworth, an American of Irish-English descent who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies.[4] The Catholic couple had married in 1917. They also had two sons: Eduardo, Jr. and Vernon.[4][5]
Margarita's father wanted her to become a professional dancer, while her mother hoped she would become an actress.[6] Her paternal grandfather Antonio Cansino was renowned as a Spanish classical dancer; he popularized the bolero and his dancing school in Madrid was world famous.[7] Rita later recalled,

From the time I was three and a half ... as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons."[8] I didn't like it very much ... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood.[9]

She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex, where she was taught by her uncle Angel Cansino. She performed publicly from the age of six.[4] In 1926 at the age of eight, she was featured in La Fiesta, a short film for Warner Bros..[4]

In 1927, her father took the family to Hollywood. He believed that dancing could be featured in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio,[4] where he taught such Hollywood luminaries as James Cagney and Jean Harlow.[citation needed] During the Great Depression, he lost all his investments, as musicals were no longer in vogue and commercial interest in his dancing classes waned. He partnered with his daughter to form "The Dancing Cansinos". Since under California law, Margarita was too young to work in nightclubs and bars, her father took her with him to work across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. In the early 1930s, it was a popular tourist spot for people from Los Angeles.[4] Due to her working, Cansino never graduated from high school; she completed ninth grade at Hamilton High in Los Angeles.

At the age of 16, Cansino took a bit part in the film Cruz Diablo (1934), which led to another in In Caliente (1935) with the Mexican actress Dolores del Río.[4] Cansino danced with her father in such nightspots as the Foreign and the Caliente clubs. Winfield Sheehan, the head of the Fox Film Corporation, saw her dancing at the Caliente Club and quickly arranged for Hayworth to do a screen test a week later. Impressed by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract at Fox, under the name Rita Cansino, the first of name changes for her film career...

During her time at Fox, Cansino appeared in five pictures, in non-notable roles. By the end of her six-month contract, Fox had merged into 20th Century Fox, with Darryl F. Zanuck serving as the executive producer. Dismissing Sheehan's interest in Cansino, Zanuck did not renew her contract. Feeling that Cansino had screen potential, the salesman and promoter Edward C. Judson, whom she would marry in 1936, got her the lead roles in several independent films and arranged a screen test with Columbia Pictures. The studio head Harry Cohn signed Cansino to a long-term contract, and cast her in small roles in Columbia features.

Often cast as the exotic foreigner, Cansino appeared in several roles in 1935: in Dante's Inferno, with Spencer Tracy; and Paddy O'Day, in which she played a Russian dancer. She was an Argentinian in Under the Pampas Moon and an Egyptian beauty in Charlie Chan in Egypt. In 1936 she took her first starring role as a "Latin type" in Human Cargo.[4]

Cohn argued that Cansino's image was too Mediterranean, which reduced her opportunities to being cast in "exotic" roles, more limited in number. With Cohn and Judson's encouragement, Hayworth changed her hair color to dark red and her name to Rita Hayworth. She had electrolysis to raise her hairline and broaden the appearance of her forehead. By using her mother's maiden name, she led people to see her British-American ancestry and became a classic "American" pin-up.[4]

She is Spanish.

That is cool.

I suspect old Hollywood, much like the rest of America, is xenophobic. The Spanish is Mediterranean like Italians, right? Which means they typically have dark hair, eyes, and skin, right? Kind of like Penelope Cruz, Charlie Sheen, Antonio Banderas, etc.

I don't think Rita looked bad before she became a redhead. She looked very pretty, in fact.

[witchcurlgirl]

She's also half English-Irish.

And Spanish people, like Italians, have light hair and eyes almost as often as dark. Get a fucking clue. I suspect Hollywood isn't the alone in xenophobia, or stereotyping.

[Air Quotes]

I'm detecting a smidge of "but what is her race" up in here.

[witchcurlgirl]

I suspect old Hollywood, much like the rest of America, is xenophobic. The Spanish is Mediterranean like Italians, right? Which means they typically have dark hair, eyes, and skin, right? Kind of like Penelope Cruz, Charlie Sheen, Antonio Banderas, etc.

BTW, Charlie Sheen is much more Irish and Scottish than Spanish. So you'll have to find a different stereotype for him.

[Yasmine-Khan]

I'm detecting a smidge of "but what is her race" up in here.

Well, she is obviously Caucasian.

We are discussing old Hollywood's reaction to dark features and distaste for anything that is not Anglo-Saxon. Rita inherited her father's dark features and had an exotic name. People probably thought she was Mexican.