Susan Hayward

Infobox actor
bgcolour = silver
name = Susan Hayward


birthname= Edythe Marrenner
imagesize = 200px
caption = from the film "" (1947)
birthdate = birth date|1917|6|30|mf=yfact|date=June 2008
location = Brooklyn, New York
height =
deathdate = death date and age|1975|3|14|1917|6|30|mf=y
deathplace = Hollywood, California
spouse = Jess Barker (1944-1954) 2 children
Floyd Eaton Chalkley (1957-1966)
academyawards = Best Actress
1958 "I Want to Live!"
goldenglobeawards = Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy
1953 "With a Song in My Heart"
Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1959 "I Want to Live!"
awards = Best Actress Award - Cannes Film Festival
1956 "I'll Cry Tomorrow"

Susan Hayward (June 30, 1917fact|date=June 2008 – March 14, 1975) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Biography

Early life

Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner in Brooklyn, New York to Walter Marrenner and Ellen Pearson. Her maternal grandparents were from Sweden. [ [http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=tmsidb0&id=I45864 TMSI Research Database] RootsWeb.] She began her career as a photographer's model, going to Hollywood in 1937, aiming to secure the role of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind". Her screen name was chosen by her management because it was "as close to Rita Hayworth as we can get away with."

Career

Although she did not win the role of Scarlett O'Hara, Hayward found employment playing bit parts until she was cast in "Beau Geste" (1939) opposite Gary Cooper. During the war years, she played leading lady to John Wayne twice, in "Reap the Wild Wind" (1942) and "The Fighting Seabees" (1944). She also starred in the film version of "The Hairy Ape" (1944). Later in 1955, she was cast by Howard Hughes to play Bortai in the historical epic "The Conqueror", again opposite John Wayne.After the war, she established herself as one of Hollywood's most popular leading ladies in films such as "Tap Roots" (1948), "My Foolish Heart" (1949), "David and Bathsheba" (1951), and "With a Song in My Heart" (1952).

In 1947, she received the first of five Academy Award nominations for her role as an alcoholic nightclub singer in "Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman".

During the 1950s she won acclaim for her dramatic performances as President Andrew Jackson's melancholic wife in "The President's Lady" (1953); the alcoholic actress Lillian Roth in "I'll Cry Tomorrow" (1955), based on Roth's best-selling autobiography of the same name, for which she received a Cannes award; and the real-life California murderer Barbara Graham in "I Want to Live!" (1958). Hayward's portrayal of Graham won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. She replaced the fired Judy Garland as Helen Lawson in the 1968 film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls.

She received good reviews for her performance in a Las Vegas production of "Mame", but left the production because she felt unprepared for the demands the role made on her voice.fact|date=April 2008 She blamed herself for not wanting to spend the money on voice lessons that might have allowed her to keep the role.fact|date=April 2008 She was replaced by Oscar-winning actress and singer Celeste Holm.

She continued to act throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Her final film role was as Dr. Maggie Cole in the 1972 made-for-TV drama "Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole". (The film was intended to be a pilot episode for a weekly television series, but due to Hayward's cancer diagnosis and failing health, the series was never produced.) Her last public appearance was at the 1975 Oscar telecast to present the Best Actress award, despite the fact she was very ill. With Charlton Heston supporting her, and having been given massive doses of dopamine,fact|date=April 2008 she managed to get through it. Hayward later stated, "that's the last time I do that."fact|date=April 2008

Personal life

Hayward was married to actor Jess Barker for 10 years, and they had two children. The marriage was described in Hollywood gossip columns as turbulent. They divorced in 1954. During the contentious divorce proceedings, Hayward felt it necessary to stay in the United States and not join the Hong Kong location shooting for the film "Soldier of Fortune". She shot her scenes with co-star Clark Gable indoors in Hollywood. A few brief, distant scenes of Gable and a Hayward double walking near landmarks in Hong Kong were combined with the indoor shots to create a remarkably effective illusion.

In 1957, Hayward married Eaton Chalkley, a Georgia rancher and businessman who had formerly worked as a federal agent. Though he was an unusual husband for a Hollywood movie star, the marriage was a happy one. She lived with him in Carrollton, Georgia, becoming a popular figure in a state that in the 1950s was off the beaten path for most national celebrities. In December 1964, she and her husband were baptized Catholic at SS Peter and Paul's Roman Catholic Church on Larimar Avenue, in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh, by one Father McGuire. She had met McGuire while in China and promised him that if she ever converted, he would be the one to baptize her.fact|date=April 2008

Chalkley died in 1966. Hayward went into mourning and did little acting for several years, and took up residence in Florida because she preferred not to live in her Georgia home without her late husband. Hayward died at age 57 on March 14, 1975, of pneumonia-related complications of brain cancer, having survived considerably longer than doctors had originally predicted. She was cremated and buried next to Chalkley in Carrollton. She was survived by her two sons from the marriage with Barker.

Hayward has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6251 Hollywood Boulevard.

Filmography and awards

Features

Biography

*McClelland, Doug. "Susan Hayward, The Divine Bitch", New York: Pinnacle Books, 1973.

ee also

*List of notable brain tumor patients

References

External links

*imdb name|id=0001333|name=Susan Hayward
*tvtome person|id=114388
* [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_016.html Article about the radioactive film set] (from The Straight Dope)
* [http://susanhayward.fashionstate.com Susan Hayward @ FashionState.com]
*
* [http://film.virtual-history.com/person.php?personid=1604 Photographs and bibliography]

Persondata
NAME= Hayward, Susan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Marrenner, Edythe
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Actress
DATE OF BIRTH= June 30, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH= Brooklyn, New York
DATE OF DEATH= March 14, 1975
PLACE OF DEATH= Hollywood, California