WE’LL NEVER FORGET SUSAN WHAT’S ‘ER NAME
Hello everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers back again
It’s not easy for either of us at the moment to come up with the name of a bigger Hollywood star of the Forties and Fifties less remembered today than Susan Hayward.
Disagree? Well give us a holler, and while you’re at it, provide us your candidate for most-forgotten-star honors.
Born Edythe Marrenner on June 30, 1917, Hayward was nurtured in “poverty and bred to insecurity,” writes Beverly Linet in her useful 1980 biography of the star, “Susan Hayward: Portrait of a Survivor.
Throughout her life, the famously Brooklyn-born, red-headed 5-foot-3 actress had “to battle for happiness. For over three decades, she dazzled audiences and critics with portrayals of tragic, stormy women – a gallery of winners, losers, fighters and survivors – and she knew then well, because they were all her,” Linet writes in fevered prose style.
In a traumatic street accident, Hayward was hit by a car she didn’t see (her nearsightedness went unattended), severely injured at age seven. She resented her mother, who favored her ne’er-do-well sister Florence. Her beloved father died in a welfare hospital when she was barely in her Twenties.
After a stint in the minor leagues of New York modeling – her movie career was launched via a Saturday Evening Post feature about the modeling world — Hayward made the trek to Hollywood in 1937, under the aegis of mega-producer David O. Selznick. She was tested for a part in “Gone With The Wind” but was rejected. After Selznick gave up on her, Hayward moved on to Warner Brothers where she made her debut movie appearance in a forgettable 1938 ditty titled “Girls on Probation.”
Things soon soured at Warner Brothers. According to Linet, Hayward’s first Hollywood agent reported that a studio drama coach felt that she “not a very nice girl.” At her next studio, Paramount, the word got out that “she’s got nothing…She was a bitch.” (That report came from Susan’s agent at the time. Of course, with agents like that, who needs enemies?)
Nonetheless, Hayward remained on and off with Paramount almost through the mid-Forties. An interruption at Columbia Pictures ended after about a year partially because, according to Linet, Hayward refused to have sex with mogul Harry Cohn.
As the great actor Frederick March – Hayward’s costar in one of her few memorable pictures, Rene Clair’s “I Married A Witch” (1942) – observed: “Every inch of that woman is an actress. She can portray a lonely, desperate, frustrated women because she has experienced all those emotions. If you look closely, you’ll see they left scars on her heart.”
Susan was the second female lead in “Witch” and although she worked constantly she didn’t seem to hit it big until 1947’s “Smash-Up.” She portrayed an alcoholic wife and received her first Academy Award nomination. From this point on her career seemed to set her in soap opera-like “women’s” pictures. A big box office hit was “My Foolish Heart” with Dana Andrews. Another nomination.
By the early Fifties, Hayward began a lengthy career at Darryl F. Zanuck’s Twentieth Century-Fox, where the actress cut a wide swath and established herself as one of Hollywood’s premier actresses. (Curiously, Hayward is not mentioned in either Bob Thomas’ “King Cohn” or Mel Gussow’s Zanuck biography, “Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking.”)
By today’s anything-goes standards, Hayward conducted a fairly restrained personal life. In 1944, she began an 11-year-marriage with Jess Barker, a 32-year-old second leading man whose career sputtered as his wife’s took off. They had twin sons, but the union flamed out in spectacular style amidst headlines
And, oh yes, there was that 1955 suicide attempt when Susan overdosed on sleeping pills.
A 1957 second marriage to shadowy Georgia businessman Floyd Eaton Chalkley was happier. It ended at his death nine years later. Among in-between and post-first-marriage flings and affairs were those involving actors Jeff Chandler (also born in Brooklyn as Ira Grossel) and Richard Egan, and – inevitably – Howard Hughes.
Haywards big hits and Academy Award nominations kept coming. No one will dispute she was one of the biggest stars of the 1950’s. Keep the clicks coming on to our site since we’ll have a lot more recollections of our forgotten star.
Happy to disagree on the fact that Susan Hayward is a forgotten star….Most people who like movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood still know her and she is very popular among them.
Lots of her movies have found their ways on Official DVD releases and they have been big sellers : With a song in my heart ,I’ll cry tomorrow ,I want to live ,Snows of lilimanjaro ,Where love has gone,David and Betheba ,Smash up….and many others.
Movies unlimited has just issed the official DVD of her 1961 major box office hit “Back street”…
One thing i agree is that Hayward was a front rank star in the second part of the 1940’s…she became one of the superstars of the 1960’s and remained a major box office draw until the late sixties…
Quite a great achievement for a female Hollywood star of her time….She was unique,both a great beauty and a very talented actress.
I completely agree…She was a marvelous star and my favorite till she passed away……I was in the Air Force the year she FINALLY won Best Actress…..I still remember yelling with joy as she RACED to the stage to get that Oscar……Both she and Ann Blyth were my all time favorites, and I still search for any of their films on TV….
Thank You! I get frustrated when stars of the 40’s and 50’s are mentioned but Susan Hayward is omitted. She was one of the most talented actresses. I’ve read every book that has been written about her and that time period (I have a BA and a MA in theatre so I’m doing research for a project) and her life style is very quiet compared to her contemperaries. She wanted to hone her craft rather than just be a star. Her fellow actors felt that she was rude however she was very shy and fearful of people plus she wanted to save her energies between takes and didn’t socialize perfering to retire to her trailer. If you watch her performances today you can see the European influence; early in her career she became aquinted with Greogory Rattoff, a actor, director and producer, and his acting teacher wife both from Europe. I am a fan!
Susan Hayward is certainly not “forgotten” in my mind! In fact, of the more classic stars, she has been my all-time favorite since I was a child. No one could portray anguish and strength and perseverance better than Susan Hayward!
She’s not forgotten at all.
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SUSAN HAYWARD and ANN SHERIDAN were 2 of the greatest actresses to hit the big screen. They are not forgotten. You can forget Katharine Hepburn…Bette Davis….Joan Crawford and many overrated actors.
Let’s be honest. First, Susan is one of my top 5 favorites! A beauty and terrific actress (I don’t know why these days people seem ashamed to use the word actress; everyone has to be a “actor’: so stupid. But in today’s world she doesn’t receive the credit she’s due and the remembrance she deserves. Davis and Crawford are remembered and deserve to be. My favorite television channel is TCM and they even seem to short-change Susan. I hope someone, somehow starts a campaign to give the great SUSAN HAYWARD her much deserved recognition.