Susan Hayward

Susan Hayward
Susan Hayward
	from the film Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947)
Born	Edythe Marrenner
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1937–1972
Spouse(s)	Jess Barker (1944–1954); Floyd Eaton Chalkley (1957–1966)

Susan Hayward (June 30, 1917 – March 14, 1975) was an American actress.

After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward travelled to Hollywood in 1937 when open auditions were held for the leading role in Gone With the Wind (1939). Although she was not selected, she secured a film contract, and played several small supporting roles over the next few years. By the late 1940s the quality of her film roles had improved, and she achieved recognition for her dramatic abilities with the first of five Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her performance as an alcoholic in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947). Her career continued successfully through the 1950s and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of death row inmate Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958).

By this time, Hayward was married and living in Georgia and her film appearances became infrequent, although she continued acting in film and television until 1972. She died in 1975 following a long battle with brain cancer.

Early life

Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner in Brooklyn, New York to Walter Marrenner and Ellen Pearson. Her maternal grandparents were from Sweden.^[1] 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.

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.

In 1961, Hayward starred as a working girl who becomes the wife of the state's next governor (Dean Martin) and ultimately takes over that office herself in Ada. She replaced Judy Garland as Helen Lawson in the 1967 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. She was replaced by Celeste Holm.

She continued to act 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 1974 Academy Awards telecast to present the Best Actress award, despite the fact she was very ill. With Charlton Heston supporting her, and she was able to present the award.

Personal life

Hayward was married to actor Jess Barker for 10 years, and they had two children, fraternal twin sons. 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.

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 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.^[2] 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 predicted. There is speculation that she may have been affected by radioactive fallout from atmospheric atomic bomb tests^[3] while making The Conqueror with John Wayne. Several production members, as well as Wayne himself, Agnes Moorehead and Pedro Armendariz, later succumbed to cancer and cancer-related illnesses. She was survived by her two sons from the marriage with Barker. Hayward was cremated and buried at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church.^[4]

Hayward has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6251 Hollywood Boulevard.^[5]

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1937	Hollywood Hotel	Starlet at table	uncredited
1938	The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse	Patient	scenes deleted
	The Sisters	Telephone operator	uncredited
	Girls on Probation	Gloria Adams
	Comet Over Broadway	Amateur Actress	uncredited
	Campus Cinderella	Co-Ed	Short subject
1939	Beau Geste	Isobel Rivers
	Our Leading Citizen	Judith Schofield
	$1000 a Touchdown	Betty McGlen
1941	Adam Had Four Sons	Hester Stoddard
	Sis Hopkins	Carol Hopkins
	Among the Living	Millie Pickens
1942	Reap the Wild Wind	Cousin Drusilla Alston
	The Forest Rangers	Tana 'Butch' Mason
	I Married a Witch	Estelle Masterson
	Star Spangled Rhythm	Herself - Genevieve in Priorities Skit
	A Letter from Bataan	Mrs. Mary Lewis
1943	Young and Willing	Kate Benson
	Hit Parade of 1943	Jill Wright
	Jack London	Charmian Kittredge
1944	The Fighting Seabees	Constance Chesley
	The Hairy Ape	Mildred Douglas
	And Now Tomorrow	Janice Blair
	Skirmish on the Home Front	Molly Miller	Short subject
1946	Deadline at Dawn	June Goth
1946	Canyon Passage	Lucy Overmire
1947	Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman	Angelica 'Angie'/'Angel' Evans Conway	Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress
	They Won't Believe Me	Verna Carlson
	The Lost Moment	Tina Bordereau
1948	Tap Roots	Morna Dabney
1948	The Saxon Charm	Janet Busch
1949	Tulsa	Cherokee Lansing
	House of Strangers	Irene Bennett
	My Foolish Heart	Eloise Winters	Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress
1951	Screen Snapshots: Hopalong in Hoppy Land	Herself	Short subject
	I'd Climb the Highest Mountain	Mary Elizabeth Eden Thompson
	Rawhide	Vinnie Holt
	I Can Get It for You Wholesale	Harriet Boyd
	David and Bathsheba	Bathsheba
1952	With a Song in My Heart	Jane Froman	Golden Globe Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress
	The Snows of Kilimanjaro	Helen
	The Lusty Men	Louise Merritt
1953	The President's Lady	Rachel Donaldson
1953	White Witch Doctor	Ellen Burton
1954	Demetrius and the Gladiators	Messalina
1954	Garden of Evil	Leah Fuller
1955	Untamed	Katie O'Neill (Kildare) (Van Riebeck)
	Soldier of Fortune	Mrs. Jane Hoyt
	I'll Cry Tomorrow	Lillian Roth	Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated - BAFTA Award
1956	The Conqueror	Bortai
1957	Top Secret Affair	Dorothy 'Dottie' Peale
1958	I Want to Live!	Barbara Graham	Academy Award for Best Actress Golden Globe Nominated - BAFTA Award
1959	Thunder in the Sun	Gabrielle Dauphin
1959	Woman Obsessed	Mary Sharron
1961	The Marriage-Go-Round	Content Delville
	Ada	Ada Gillis
	Back Street	Rae Smith
1962	I Thank a Fool	Christine Allison
1963	Stolen Hours	Laura Pember
1964	Where Love Has Gone	Valerie Hayden Miller
1967	The Honey Pot	Mrs. Sheridan
	Valley of the Dolls	Helen Lawson
	Think Twentieth	Herself
1972	The Revengers	Elizabeth Reilly
	Heat of Anger	Jessie Fitzgerald	TV
	Say Goodbye Maggie Cole	Dr. Maggie Cole	TV

References

^ "TMSI Research Database". Retrieved 2009-12-02.
^ Local Village Of America (September 21, 2008). "Susan Hayward Remembered". Retrieved 2009-12-02.
^ Wayne, Pilar. John Wayne: My Life with the Duke. McGraw-Hill, 1987, ISBN 0-07-068662-9, p. 103
^ "Carrolton Convention & Visitors Bureau". Retrieved 2009-12-02.
^ "Hollywood Chamber of Commerce - Susan Hayward". Retrieved 2009-12-02.

External links

Please use a more specific IMDb template. See the documentation for available templates.
Template:Tvtome person
Susan Hayward at AllMovie
Article about the radioactive film set (from The Straight Dope)
Susan Hayward @ FashionState.com
Susan Hayward at Find a Grave
Photographs and bibliography

Template:Persondata

[1] "TMSI Research Database". Retrieved 2009-12-02.

[2] Local Village Of America (September 21, 2008). "Susan Hayward Remembered". Retrieved 2009-12-02.

[3] Wayne, Pilar. John Wayne: My Life with the Duke. McGraw-Hill, 1987, ISBN 0-07-068662-9, p. 103

[4] "Carrolton Convention & Visitors Bureau". Retrieved 2009-12-02.

[5] "Hollywood Chamber of Commerce - Susan Hayward". Retrieved 2009-12-02.

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