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If This Was Happiness

A Biography of Rita Hayworth

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If This Was Happiness

Written by: Barbara Leaming
Narrated by: Anna Fields
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About this listen

 Rita Hayworth was the epitome of 1940s glamour. A legendary "Love Goddess", she was a huge box-office star, and her sultry beauty and sensational figure made her into one of Hollywood's greatest sex-symbols: a pin-up so incendiary that GIs pasted it on to the first atom bomb ever detonated.

Yet behind the smoldering image lay a tragic secret that wrecked her private life. A pathologically shy child, she was thrust at an early age into a sordid limelight as her vaudevillian father's dancing partner, and suffered sexual and physical abuse at his hands. A desperate need for protection led her into five marriages, including nuptials with Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan. All of them resulted in exploitation and disaster, as did affairs with some of the world's most glamorous men.

©1989 Barbara Leaming (P)1996 Blackstone Audio Inc. Entertainment & Celebrities Film & TV
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What the critics say

"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)

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Profile Image for Langer MD

Thesis-Driven

Barbara Leaming looks at all of the professional (vaudeville and film) and personal events (marriages, motherhood, and divorces) in Rita Hayworth's life through the prism of her childhood sexual abuse. The focus is a little heavyhanded at times, but ties the piece together nicely.
The book is furthermore well-written, researched exhaustively, and informed with voluminous quotations from friends, family, and colleagues. This is a creditable Biography about a fascinating early Hollywood star.

Outstanding narration by Anna Fields elevates my estimation of the book as well. Her diction, timbre, and cadence are exemplary.. and her interested didactic tone fits the text perfectly. Blackstone Audio engineers provide praiseworthy technical support and the producers cast the project admirably.

Altogether, 'If This Was Happiness: A Biography Of Rita Hayworth' merits 9 stars out of 10. If you can get it from the 'Plus' catalogue (as I did), it's a no-brainer to give the book a listen.. in fact, this combination retrospective & psychological treatise would rate a Credit.

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