American actress who, after four Academy Award nominations, finally won an Oscar for her performance in I Want to Live! Born Edythe Marrener in Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 1917 (also seen as 1918 and 1919); died in Los Angeles, California, on March 14, 1975; second daughter and third child of Walter (a transit worker) and Ellen (Pearson) Marrener; attended Girls’ Commercial High School, Brooklyn; married Jeffrey (Jess) Thomas Barker (an actor), on July 23, 1944 (divorced 1956); married Eaton Chalkley (lawyer and businessman), on February 8, 1957 (died 1966); children: (first marriage) twin sons, Timothy and Gregory (b. 1955).
Filmography:
Hollywood Hotel (1937); The Sisters (1938); Comet Over Broadway (1938); Girls on Probation (1938); Our Leading Citizen (1939); Beau Geste (1939); $1,000 a Touchdown (1939); Adam Had Four Sons (1941); Sis Hopkins (1941); Among the Living (1941); Reap the Wild Wind (1942); The Forest Rangers (1942); I Married a Witch (1942); Star Spangled Rhythm (1942); The Parade of 1943 (1943); Young and Willing (1943); Jack London (1943); The Fighting Seabees (1944); The Hairy Ape (1944); And Now Tomorrow (1944); Deadline at Dawn (1946); Canyon Passage (1946); Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947); They Won’t Believe Me (1947); The Last Moment (1947); Tap Roots (1948); The Saxon Charm (1948); Tulsa (1949); House of Strangers (1949); My Foolish Heart (1950); I’d Climb the Highest Mountain (1951); Rawhide (1951); I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1951); David and Bathsheba (1951); With a Song in My Heart (1952); The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952); The Lusty Men (1952); The President’s Lady (1953); White Witch Doctor (1953); Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954); Garden of Evil (1954); Untamed (1955); Soldier of Fortune (1955); I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1956); The Conqueror (1956); Top Secret Affair (1957); I Want to Live! (1958); Woman Obsessed (1959); Thunder in the Sun (1959); The Marriage-Go-Round (1961); Ada (1961); Back Street (1961); I Thank a Fool (1962); Stolen Hours (1963); Where Love Has Gone (1964); The Honey Pot (1967); Valley of the Dolls (1967); The Revengers (1972).
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Born in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York, screen actress Susan Hayward grew up in the shadow of poverty. At age six, while crossing the street, she was struck by a car and suffered multiple injuries that left her with a slight but permanent limp (which later evolved into her trademark “rolling” gait). She attended Girls’ Commercial High School where she studied stenography and made regular appearances in school plays. After graduating in 1935, she worked in a handkerchief factory making cloth designs. When she had saved enough money, she quit her job and enrolled in the Feagin School of Dramatic Arts at Rockefeller Center. Because of her beautiful red hair, green eyes, and porcelain complexion, Hayward was a natural for the new color magazine ads and soon landed a modeling job with the Walter Thornton Agency. In 1937, when director George Cukor saw an advertising spread featuring Hayward in the Saturday Evening Post, he persuaded producer David Selznick to test her for the coveted role of Scarlett O’Hara for his film Gone With the Wind. With stars in her eyes, Hayward left for Hollywood, accompanied by her sister Florence Marrener . Selznick, however, was unimpressed with her test and told her to go home and take some acting lessons.
Ignoring Selznick’s advice, Hayward stayed in Hollywood. With some further assistance from Cukor, who put her in touch with a Hollywood agent, she eventually landed a contract with Warner Bros. But the studio only used her for color publicity photos and as an extra, then dropped her. After some acting lessons and a concentrated effort to lose her Brooklyn accent, she signed a $200-a-week contract with Paramount and made her first “A” movie, Beau Geste (1939), with Gary Cooper and Ray Milland. For the next seven years, she struggled through an apprenticeship of minor roles at Paramount and on “loan out” assignments. Hayward vigorously campaigned for better roles, and her less than demure approach did not endear her to the studio bosses. Of the 16 movies she made during her early career, only three—Adam Had Four Sons (1941), Reap the Wild Wind (1942), and The Hairy Ape (1944)—are noteworthy.
Beginning in 1945, Hayward made a series of pictures with independent producer Walter Wanger, including The Lost Moment (1947) and Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947), in which she played an alcoholic wife struggling to get her life in order. Variety called the picture Hayward’s “biggest break to date,” and it was the first to showcase her talent in what would become her trademark role as the feisty woman who triumphs over adversity. For her work inSmash-Up, Hayward received the first of her five Academy Award nominations. She later credited Wanger for the launch of her career.
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Hayward received a second Academy Award nomination for My Foolish Heart (1950), a war story in which she played a college girl who falls in love with a callous young man (Dana Andrews), who is subsequently killed in battle. Newsweek called it “Hayward’s picture,” and fan-magazine polls confirmed a surge in her popularity. Her three subsequent Oscar nominations were all for roles in films based on actual women: With a Song in My Heart (1952) recounts the life of singer Jane Froman , I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1956) recalls the downfall of singer Lillian Roth , and I Want to Live! (1958) details the life of Barbara Graham , the first woman to be sent to the gas chamber in California.
The role of Jane Froman, the popular singer of the 1940s whose legs were severely injured in a plane crash during the war, not only advanced Hayward’s career, but did much to repair her reputation as difficult and cold on the set. She threw herself into preparation, taking dancing lessons and spending hours studying Froman’s singing style and movements, incorporating minute nuances. (Froman recorded 30 songs for Hayward to mime in the film.) Those who worked on the film found Hayward to be both competent and likable. Her co-star Rory Calhoun, who also co-starred with the actress on I’d Climb the Highest Mountain (1951), thought her the most professional woman he had ever worked with. The film was a huge success and established Hayward as a top box-office draw. In addition to the Academy Award nomination, the Foreign Press named Hayward and John Wayne the most popular stars in the world.
Hayward actively campaigned for the lead in I’ll Cry Tomorrow after reading Lillian Roth’s autobiography, tracing her long struggle with alcoholism. Hayward won the role over a dozen other top stars, but it came at a price. The actress was then suffering through a difficult period in her own life. Her first marriage to actor Jess Barker (which produced twin boys in 1955), was publicly unraveling; she was also mourning the death of several friends and resolving some ongoing issues with her mother and sister. Throwing herself into the emotional role of the tormented singer, Hayward delivered astounding performances by day but seemed unable to step out of character at night. She became increasingly distraught and depressed, and one night, while studying her scene for the following day, she overdosed on prescription sleeping pills combined with alcohol. Rushed to the hospital near death, she made a quick recovery and returned to complete the filming. Upon release, the movie surpassed all of MGM’s expectations. Hayward’s performance was cited as her finest to date, and she easily received her fourth Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. Her loss to Anna Magnani was a crushing blow that Hayward attributed to the scandal of her divorce and to Hollywood’s general dislike of her.
Although her role as Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! was as grueling as that of Lillian Roth in I’ll Cry Tomorrow, Hayward’s life had stabilized. She had settled into a happy second marriage with Southern lawyer-businessman Eaton Chalkley, and it was Chalkley who helped her make the transition each day from Graham to Hayward. The film was another tour de force for Hayward who was at the peak of her skills. The wrenching final scene, where Graham is executed in the gas chamber, was so masterfully acted that people on the set felt as though they had actually witnessed someone die. When the film was released, the execution scenes (Graham was taken to the gas chamber to die on three separate occasions before she was finally executed), caused great controversy, and were either partially cut or, in some parts of the world, banned entirely. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive, for Hayward and the film. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times, never before a fan of Hayward’s, called her performance “vivid” and “shattering.” Eleanor Roosevelt publicly praised the film, and Life magazine devoted an article to it. Academy Award night held no disappointment for Hayward, who finally won her Oscar and, along with it, the elusive approval of her peers.
During the 1960s, Hayward was cast in a series of tearjerkers and, by 1964, had pretty much called it quits. For several years, her husband had suffered recurring bouts of hepatitis; he died in 1966, at age 57. The loss was devastating to the actress who disappeared from the Hollywood scene for a year, returning in 1967 to play an aging Broadway singer, Helen Lawson, in the movie version of Jacqueline Susann ‘s Valley of the Dolls. In 1968, Hayward signed on to play Auntie Mame in a Las Vegas production of the musical Mame, undergoing a grueling regimen in order to prepare herself for the demanding song-and-dance numbers. As it turned out, her Mame was unconventional but highly effective, writes Robert C. Jennings, “glutted with
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Susan Hayward’s own very special brand of sexiness and suffering.”
Susan Hayward’s last film role was a cameo in a low-budget western called The Revengers (1972). That same year, the actress was diagnosed with brain cancer which she fought valiantly for several years. In 1974, during a seemingly miraculous period of remission, Hayward appeared live on television to present the Best Actress award at the Oscar ceremonies, a remarkable feat which she called a “miracle of faith.” The actress died on March 17, 1975.
sources:
Candee, Marjorie Dent, ed. Current Biography 1953. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1953.
LaGuardia, Robert, and Gene Arceri. Red: The Tempestuous Life of Susan Hayward. NY: Macmillan, 1985.
suggested reading:
Linet, Beverly. Susan Hayward: Portrait of a Survivor. NY: Atheneum, 1980.
Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts
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