If This Was Happiness
“Hayworth fans will learn much from this biography by the author of Orson Welles. The surprising story of the acutely shy Margarita Carmen Cansino, who was dubbed ‘the Love Goddess,’ contains more melodrama than most romance novels.”
Publishers Weekly
Rita Hayworth was the epitome of 1940s Hollywood glamour. A huge box office star, her sultry figure was pasted by GIs onto the first atom bomb ever detonated. Yet behind the smoldering image lay a tragic secret that wrecked her private life. A pathologically shy child, Rita was thrust into the sordid limelight as her vaudevillian father's dancing partner at an early age, suffering sexual and physical abuse at his hands. A desperate need for protection led her into five disastrous marriages, including those to Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan. At the age of forty-two, Alzheimer's disease began to ravage her mind, cutting short her career at its peak.
This is a haunting and sympathetic tribute to a talented but insecure beauty who was created, and ultimately destroyed, by the movies.
Praise