FSB Author Article
Finding Rita Hayworth
By Fredrica Wagman,
Author of The Lie: A Novel
My
fascination with Rita Hayworth began when I was very young because my
mother was so enthralled with Rita Hayworth herself that she named me
Rita, and although she polished my name off with the name Fredrica in
the middle, it was the name Rita that profoundly connected me to my
mother -- to my childhood and to that exquisite creature who ruled the
sliver screen for all my growing years.
People do
things like that. Pick the name of presidents and movie stars
whom
they admire for their newborn babies, hoping, preposterously, that the
name of the famous person they admire will evoke the same magic on
some
poor unsuspecting little child.
I use the word
"poor" because the child in full innocence sallies forth into life
burdened with a name and a namesake she knows nothing about. In
this
case, what glowed in my mother's esteem couldn't be denied -- Rita
Hayworth was a goddess, worshiped by men and women alike. She
was the
quintessential pin-up girl of World War II. She was the epitome
of
glamour and elegance. One of her five husbands was
a prince and the
others were iconic movie stars themselves. She had
everything -- she
was gorgeous; she had astounding beauty. She had children and
wealth
and jewels and clothes and incredible fame so that all-in-all she was a
living breathing testimonial of immensely enviable success. But that
wasn't all she had. She also had a secret. Buried deep
within her was
the knowledge of a terrible tragedy, the effects of which she bore
silently her whole life; she was the victim of severe abuse
-- physical, emotional and sexual, vested on her by her father
while
her lackluster, impoverished mother turned a blind eye to the
devastation that was her daughter's fate.
The
research that went into writing The Lie, dealt extensively with
understanding the lives and struggles of many famous movie stars, a
fascinating subject itself -- what makes them, what drives them -- but
I settled finally on Rita Hayworth, not only because our names
are the
same, and not only because my mother thought "she was the most
exquisite
thing that ever lived or breathed," but because her story was the most
clear-cut and the most brutal.
She was born
Margarita Consuelo, the granddaughter of a great and famous flamenco
dancer, so great and so famous that he was part of the court of the
King of Spain. His son, Rita Hayworth's father came to
this country
speaking no English and earning his meager living, paltry as it was, by
giving dancing lessons with his young, exquisite daughter as his
partner. Fred Astaire, speaking once of Rita Hayworth said she
was the
best partner he ever danced with, and that statement included all his
partners -- even the remarkable Ginger Rodgers. In the days of
prohibition, because this country was dry with no liquor being
sold,
Rita's father took his young, beautiful and extremely talented daughter
to Mexico, frequenting cheap night clubs and filthy dance halls where
the liquor was flowing so they could eek out a bit of money on which to
live by dancing for "tips". Things were so bad at times that Rita
was
forced by her father to catch fish off of wooden piers, often kneeling
for hours in order to catch them with her bare hands and if that
day
she caught nothing, her father would beat her within an inch of her
life, all the while introducing her as his wife and using her sexually.
This
is not an unusual story. Neither for movies stars nor for the
vast
throngs who watch them. It is a common secret tragedy for men as well
as for women, and as fascinated as I am with what makes movie stars
tick -- their stories and struggles, I am even more concerned with
the
subject of childhood sexual abuse -- how to bring it out of
the
darkness and into the light for the millions of people like Rita
Hayworth who have been so deeply scarred.
Author Bio
Fredrica Wagman, author of The
Lie: A Novel, is the
author of six previous novels. She has
four grown children and lives with her husband in New York City.
For more information please visit www.fredricawagman.com