{"id":108229,"date":"2025-10-17T08:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T12:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=108229"},"modified":"2025-10-16T12:37:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T16:37:20","slug":"rita-hayworth-dancing-the-supercut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=108229","title":{"rendered":"“Dancing in Tijuana when I was 13 \u2014 that was my ‘summer camp.’ How else do you think I could keep up with Fred Astaire when I was 19?” — Rita Hayworth"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nIt’s her birthday today!<\/p>\n

In early 2016, it was all Rita Hayworth all the time at my humble abode, due to the research I did for my essay on Gilda<\/i>, included in the Criterion Collection release of Gilda<\/i><\/a>. <\/p>\n

Gilda<\/i> represented a breakthrough. The radical nature of the breakthrough in Gilda<\/i> is startling when you watch her films in chronological order. Not only did Gilda<\/i> make Hayworth a white-hot supernova-star, the role was different from any other role she had ever played (although you could see glimpses of it in Howard Hawks’ 1939 film Only Angels Have Wings<\/i>, one of my all-time favorite movies. I wrote extensively about Hayworth in that film here.<\/a>) Gilda<\/i> came 9 years after Only Angels Have Wings<\/i>. In the interim, she played plucky ingenues, rosy-cheeked young women who went toe to toe with the best male dancers of her day (and any day). (She also was great at clowning around, as this wonderful number from 1944’s Cover Girl<\/i> shows<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

And here: <\/p>\n

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