Rita Hayworth was completely engineered by the Hollywood Studio System. Grooming her to be a big star, Columbia Pictures did the following to the pretty, cherubic Spanish (yes, Rita Hayworth is actually a Latino, see above right): They dyed her hair from black to red, they lightened the skin on her face, they gave her a new nose, a new chin, and most painful of all, they removed about two inches of her hairline to raise her forehead. And this was all done by many torturous sessions of electrolysis (I can only imagine how painful that would have been back in the late 30's.)
Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth with mother Volga, father Eduardo Cansino, and brother Vernon.
Born Margarita Carmen Cansino on Oct. 17, 1918 in Brooklyn, NY to parents Eduardo Cansino, a Spanish dancer and vaudeville performer, and Volga Hayworth, a dancer of Irish descent who performed in the Ziegfeld Follies, Hayworth grew up in New York surrounded by the glitzy world of showbiz. Raised as a dancer from an early age, Hayworth was performing on stage with her family by the age of six.
Rita Hayworth
Moving west to Hollywood when Hayworth was 8, the Cansinos opened a dance school near the corner of Sunset and Vine and Eduardo found work as a choreographer for Hollywood films. Joining her parents' stage act, the Dancing Cansinos, at the age of 13, Hayworth performed with the Spanish dancing troupe in numerous productions.
Rita Hayworth and father Eduardo Cansino
Rita Hayworth
Beneath the surface of the Cansino's show business family, however, there were dark secrets playing out. As a teenager, Hayworth often appeared in public as her father's dance partner. Reports later surfaced that Hayworth had been subject to sexual and physical abuse by her father throughout her childhood - information divulged by Hayworth's second husband, Orson Welles.
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