Susan Hayward

Biography

Susan Hayward (born Edythe Marrener; June 30, 1917 – March 14, 1975) was an American actress best known for her film portrayals of women that were based on true stories. After working as a fashion model for the Walter Thornton Model Agency, Hayward traveled to Hollywood in 1937 to audition for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. 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 improved, and she achieved recognition for her dramatic abilities with the first of five Academy Award for Best Actress nominations for her performance as an alcoholic in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947). Hayward's success continued through the 1950s as she received nominations for My Foolish Heart (1949), With a Song in My Heart (1952), and I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), winning the Academy Award for her portrayal of death row inmate Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958). For her performance in I'll Cry Tomorrow she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress. After Hayward's second marriage and subsequent move to Georgia, her film appearances became infrequent; although she continued acting in film and television until 1972. She died in 1975 of brain cancer.

== Early life == Hayward was born Edythe Marrener on June 30, 1917, in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of three children to Ellen (née Pearson) and Walter Marrener. Her mother was of Swedish descent. She had an older sister, Florence, and an older brother, Walter Jr. In 1924, Marrener was hit by a car, suffering a fractured hip and broken legs that put her in a partial body cast with the resulting bone setting leaving her with a distinctive hip swivel later in life. She was educated at Public School 181 and graduated from the Girls' Commercial High School in June 1935 (later renamed Prospect Heights High School). According to the Erasmus Hall High School alumni page, Hayward attended that school in the mid-1930s, although she only recollected swimming at the pool for a dime during hot summers in Flatbush, Brooklyn. During her high school years, she acted in various school plays, and was named "Most Dramatic" by her class.

== Career == Marrener began her career as a model, traveling to Hollywood in 1937 to try out for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. Though Hayward did not get the part, she was used for other actors' screen tests by David Selznick and received a contract at Warner Bros.

=== Warner Bros. === Talent agent Max Arnow changed Marrener's name to Susan Hayward once she started her six-month contract for $50 a week with the Warner Bros. movie studio. Hayward had bit parts in Hollywood Hotel (1937), The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) (her part was edited out), and The Sisters (1938), as well as in a short, Campus Cinderella (1938). Hayward's first sizeable role was with Ronald Reagan in Girls on Probation (1938), where she was a strong 10th in billing. She was also in Comet Over Broadway (1938), but returned to unbilled and began posing for pinup "cheesecake" publicity photos, something she and most actresses despised, but under her contract she had no choice. With Hayward's contract at Warner Bros. finished, she moved on to Paramount Studios.

=== Paramount ===

In 1939, Paramount Studios signed her to a $250 per week contract. Hayward had her first breakthrough in the part of Isobel in Beau Geste (1939) opposite Gary Cooper and Ray Milland. She held the small, but important, haunting love of youth role as recalled by the Geste brothers while they searched for a valuable sapphire known as "the blue water" during desert service in the Foreign Legion; the film was hugely successful. Paramount put Hayward as the second lead in Our Leading Citizen (1939) with Bob Burns and she then supported Joe E. Brown in $1000 a Touchdown (1939). Hayward went to Columbia for a supporting role alongside Ingrid Bergman in Adam Had Four Sons (1941), then to Republic Pictures for Sis Hopkins (1941) with Judy Canova and Bob Crosby. Back at Paramount, she had the lead in a "B" film, Among the Living (1941) alongside Albert Dekker and Frances Farmer. Cecil B. De Mille gave her a good supporting role in Reap the Wild Wind (1942), to costar with Milland, John Wayne and Paulette Goddard. She was in the short A Letter from Bataan (1942) and supported Goddard and Fred MacMurray in The Forest Rangers (1942).

=== United Artists and Republic === Hayward costarred in I Married a Witch (1942) with Fredric March and Veronica Lake, as the fiancé of Wallace Wooly (March) before Lake's witch reappears from a Puritanical stake burning 300 years earlier. The film served as inspiration for the 1960s TV series Bewitched and was based on an unfinished novel by Thorne Smith. It was made for Paramount but was sold to United Artists. She was next in Paramount's all-star musical review Star Spangled Rhythm (1943) that also featured its nonmusical contract players. Hayward appeared with William Holden in Young and Willing (1943), a Paramount film distributed by UA. She was in Republic's Hit Parade of 1943 (1943), her singing voice dubbed by Jeanne Darrell. Sam Bronston borrowed her for Jack London (1943) at UA. At Republic she was Wayne's love interest in The Fighting Seabees (1944), the biggest budgeted film in that company's history. She starred in the film version of The Hairy Ape (1944) for UA. Back at Paramount she was Loretta Young's sister in And Now Tomorrow (1944). She then left the studio. RKO gave Hayward her first top billing in Deadline at Dawn (1946), a Clifford Odets written Noir film, which was Harold Clurman's only movie as director.

=== Walter Wanger and stardom ===