Susan Hayward
from the film Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947)
Born	Edythe Marrenner
Spouse(s)	Jess Barker (1944-1954) 2 children Floyd Eaton Chalkley (1957-1966)
Awards	Best Actress Award - Cannes Film Festival 1956 I'll Cry Tomorrow

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

Biography

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. Her screen name was chosen by her management because it was "as close to Rita Hayworth as we can get away with."

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 an Academy Award as Best Actress.

She received good reviews for her performance in a Las Vegas production of Mame, but left the production because she felt unprepared for the demands the role made on her voice. She blamed herself for not wanting to spend the money on voice lessons that might have allowed her to keep the role. She was replaced by the talented, but prickly Oscar-winning actress and singer Celeste Holm.

She continued to act throughout the 1960s and 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 Oscar telecast to present the Best Actress award, despite the fact she was very ill. With Charlton Heston supporting her, and having been given massive doses of dopamine, she managed to get through it. Hayward later stated, "that's the last time I do that."

Personal life

In December 1964, she was baptized a Catholic at SS Peter and Paul's Roman Catholic Church on Larimar Avenue, in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh, by Father McGuire. She had met Father McGuire while in China and promised him that if she ever converted, he would be the one to baptize her.

Hayward died at age 57 on March 14, 1975, of pneumonia-related complications of her brain cancer, having survived considerably longer than doctors had originally predicted. She was cremated and buried next to her second husband, Eaton Chalkley, with whom she had converted to Roman Catholicism, in Carrollton, Georgia. She was survived by her two sons. Chalkley was by all accounts the love of Hayward's life, and they had lived together happily in Carrollton for years before his death in 1966.

Some^[who?] theorize that Hayward’s cancer was a result of having been exposed to nuclear fallout during the filming of The Conqueror (1956) near St. George, Utah. During the 13 weeks of filming in the summer of 1955, the cast and crew were probably dusted with the fallout from the Zucchini test (May 15 1955) and possibly the Tesla test (March 1 1955). By this time, St. George had already received most of the fallout that would later make it the most famous of the "downwinder" cities (see DOE/NV 374).

However, the number of cases of cancer detected (91) and the number of deaths from cancer (46) in the cast and crew (220) are in line with the average lifetime risk of cancer in whites (around 40%) and the average lifetime risk of dying of cancer for whites (around 20%), as published by the National Cancer Institute SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1975-2001.

Hayward has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6251 Hollywood Blvd.

Filmography and awards

Features

Biography

• McClelland, Doug. Susan Hayward, The Divine Bitch, New York: Pinnacle Books, 1973.

See also

• List of notable brain tumor patients

References

External links

• Susan Hayward at IMDb
• Template:Tvtome person
• Article about the radioactive film set (from The Straight Dope)
• Susan Hayward @ FashionState.com
• Susan Hayward's Gravesite
• Photographs and bibliography