If This Was Happiness cover art

If This Was Happiness

A Biography of Rita Hayworth

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If This Was Happiness

By: Barbara Leaming
Narrated by: Anna Fields
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About this listen

 Rita Hayworth was the epitome of 1940s glamour. A legendary "Love Goddess", she was a huge box-office star, and her sultry beauty and sensational figure made her into one of Hollywood's greatest sex-symbols: a pin-up so incendiary that GIs pasted it on to the first atom bomb ever detonated.

Yet behind the smoldering image lay a tragic secret that wrecked her private life. A pathologically shy child, she was thrust at an early age into a sordid limelight as her vaudevillian father's dancing partner, and suffered sexual and physical abuse at his hands. A desperate need for protection led her into five marriages, including nuptials with Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan. All of them resulted in exploitation and disaster, as did affairs with some of the world's most glamorous men.

©1989 Barbara Leaming (P)1996 Blackstone Audio Inc. Entertainment & Celebrities Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV Celebrity Biography

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Critic reviews

"Hayworth fans will learn much from this biography by the author of Orson Welles. The surprising story of the acutely shy Margarita Carmen Cansino, who was dubbed "the Love Goddess", contains more melodrama than most romance novels." ( Publishers Weekly)
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Good listen to an interesting life and how badly she was treated by those who were supposed to have loved her most

intriguing

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This was a cracking listen. Well written, well narrated and absolutely fascinating. I'm sure I will listen to this again in future.

Fascinating Insight Into A Hollywood Life

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loved hearing about Rita's life I had no idea the sadness & abuse she had suffered. Her custody battles over her daughter. Her 5 husbands, her sad decent into Dementia
it's a long book, I think there were one or two points it got too much. Namely the 4th husband. It was heartening to know her youngest daughter took care of her in her decline.

Beautiful Rita Heyworth

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Lovely story. Read all the Hollywood actresses biographies but never one of her. So sad she ended up with Alzheimer’s. So young.

Lovely

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For all her beauty and success you couldn’t want the life she had. I don’t think she ever escaped from her start in life. Uneducated, unprotected and abused, what a desperate situation. The story is told very well and I liked the analysis parts too. Thankfully she had a few good friends and her youngest daughter at the end of her life. I shall look at her in her movies with a rather different view of how she got there.

Sad but True

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really interesting, sad funny well Narrated Tragic life story highly recommended five stars 🌟

amazing story of a tumultuous life

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In Leaming's sensitive and excellently written autobiography we learn about the woman behind the myth of the Love Goddess. It seems Rita Hayworth was not lucky at all in love and despite her fame and fortune, craved security and love. It explains how she was expolited by husbands and the Hollywood system and how she yearned to be free of the Hollywood circus and out of the grasps of Jack Cohen.

The Woman Behind The Love Goddess

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Such an interesting story, with many twists and turns. The poor woman seems to have been used by men on so many occasions. Very engaging, and superbly narrated.

The perfect telling of a sad, messy and glamorous life

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Worth listening to about lovely lady about her film and her lovely life Anna field wonderful

Very good book

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I liked the friendships she had forged over the years. Very sad ending indeed.

Her childhood story was moving and disturbing at the same time.

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