Since we’re concentrating on the life and career of Rita Hayworth this week we thought we’d have Rita as the subject of our Motoring on Mondays. So here she is — all of 23 years old — posing next to her 1941 Lincoln Continental.
Hayworth hadn’t yet reached the heights of stardom by 1941, but she was well on her way. She appears casually elegant above, and looks great. This is definitely one instance where our star is not upstaged by the auto.
Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to continue our celebration of Rita in all her considerable glory.
To give you some idea of how Hayworth’s career stood at the time this publicity shot was taken, we should note that Gilda, her signature movie opposite Glenn Ford, was five years away. The Lady From Shanghai was six years off, and Miss Sadie Thompson was a full 12 years in her future.
Nonetheless, 1941 was a busy year for Rita. She made four — count ‘em — movies that year: The Strawberry Blond, Affectionately Yours, Blood and Sand and You’ll Never Get Rich. In the latter, she danced (most gracefully) for the first time with Fred Astaire.
Rita at this time was also pretty much free and fancy on the romantic front. Her first marriage to much-older manager Edward Judson was winding down, and someone by the name of Orson Welles was beginning to become more interesting. (Hayworth and Welles married two years later.)
The Forties belonged to Rita, and here she is with her auto at the beginning of it all.
