'The Love Goddess' herself, Rita Hayworth, was born on this day 100 years ago in Brooklyn. Audiences first noticed her in a small role in Only Angels Have Wings (1939) and she seguewayed into profile boosters like Blood and Sand (1941) and Strawberry Blonde (1941). A natural dancer she made two pictures she obviously cherished with Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942) -- Astaire went so far as calling her his favorite dancer partner -- and was one of the two ubiquitous pinups of World War II for American soldiers (the other being Betty Grable)...
The photoshoot that GIs obsessed over during World War II
By the mid 40s she was one of Hollywood's top leading ladies headlining films like Cover Girl (1944), Tonight and Every Night (1945), The Lady From Shanghai (1947), and The Loves of Carmen (1948).
She is of course best remembered today for her star turn in Gilda (1946) which is a masterclass in screen magnetism; Stardom honestly doesn't get more transfixing than that. (Noirs weren't as appreciated in their day as they are today but she really ought to have been Oscar-nominated for it.)
Though Grace Kelly's was the only 'princess' Hollywood story that stuck in the public consciousness, Rita Hayworth was actually the first movie star to marry a Prince. She married Prince Aly Khan (who eventually became the Ambassador of Pakistan - the country had just gained independence from British India in 1947) at the peak of her career in 1948 and promptly vanished from screens for four years. They had one child together. Khan had a thing for actresses, though, reportedly seeing both Joan Fontaine and Gene Tierney during their unhappy marriage which ended in 1953.
She returned to Hollywood with Affair in Trinidad (1952), another noir with her Gilda co-star Glenn Ford. After her last hit, the Oscar-nominated Separate Tables (1958), Hayworth made films infrequently, eventually fading from the public eye.
This is one of the last known photos of her above, taken in 1980. Sadly she deterioriated quickly thereafter from early-onset Alzheimers and died in 1987 at the age of 68. Her daughter Yasmin Aga Khan is the president of Alzheimer's Disease International which works for global solutions and to share information about dementia.
Some more glorious photos of The Love Goddess to cherish on her centennial...
Lovely forever.