Latinas in the Movies

• Published in: The Hispanic outlook in higher education Vol. 21; no. 2; p. 28
• Main Author: Rice, Cheryl
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: Paramus The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education 18.10.2010
• Subjects: Careers; Del Rio, Dolores; Hayworth, Rita (1918-87); Hispanic Americans; Lopez, Jennifer; Miranda, Carmen; Moreno, Rita; Motion pictures; Personal profiles; Velez, Lupe

Her success in Mexican films was steady and strong, and at 37, she was making movies in Spanish for the first time in her life. She is closely associated with the period of the 1940s referred to as the Golden Era of Mexican Cinema, to a large extent because of her -association with director Emilio Fernández. She formed a production group with him, del RíoFernández, and with him went on to make some of the most acclaimed movies in México during the 1940s and '50s. In 1947, she even starred in an Argentinian film based on Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan. Eventually, she was awarded the Silver Ariel, Mexico's equivalent of the Oscar, four times. Rita Hayworth also began her career as a dancer and is perhaps best remembered for the strapless black evening gown she wore in Gilda and the torch song she performed, "Put the Blame on Maine." Born in New York City, on Oct. 17, 1918, her father and his father had been dancers, too. Eduardo Cansino had emigrated to the United States from Spain in 1913- He met and married her mother, former Ziegfeld Girl Volga Hayworth, shortly thereafter. After moving to West Hollywood when she was 8, her first film role was with her family, appearing as extras in a film called La Fiesta. The young Margarita Carmen Cansino was noticed by a Fox Studios bigwig while performing with her family across the border while still too young to dance in U.S. nightclubs, and offered a contract. Her solo film debut was in that smdio's Cruz Diablo, at the ripe age of 16. It wasn't until 1939 that her billing changed from Rita Cansino to the more European Rita Hayworth (her mother was of English and Irish descent). At Warner Brothers, in the 1941 film The Strawberry Blonde, she finally began to attract some attention. A starring role in a remake of Blood and Sand with Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell later that year made even more of a splash, filmed in the budding Technicolor that gave movie audiences their first glimpse of her newly auburn locks. Along the way, she had undergone an anglicizing electrolysis to raise and smooth her sharp widow's peak hairline. With Columbia's Harry Cohen masterminding her career, she danced with Fred Astaire in You. 'Il Never Get Rich in 1941 and sashayed in Gilda, her signature film, the peak of her film career. Along with that of vanilla Betty Grable, Hayworth 's pin-up photo was admired by U.S. troops throughout World War II. The negligee she wore for the shot sold at auction in 2002 for more than $26,000.