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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.
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.Holston 2009, p. 7.
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 Pin-up model "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 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 movie" 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).
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 Film noir film, which was Harold Clurman's only movie as director.
In 1947, she received the first of five Academy Awards nominations for her role as an alcoholic nightclub singer based on Dixie Lee in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman, her second film for Wanger. Although it was not well received by critics, it was popular with audiences and a box office success, launching Hayward as a star.Matthew Bernstein, Walter Wagner: Hollywood Independent, Minnesota Press, 2000, p. 443.
RKO used her again for They Won't Believe Me (1947). She subsequently worked for Wanger on The Lost Moment (1948) and Tap Roots (1948). Both films lost money but the latter was widely seen.Matthew Bernstein, Walter Wagner: Hollywood Independent, Minnesota Press, 2000, p. 444.
At Universal Hayward was in The Saxon Charm (1948) and she did Tulsa (1949) for Wanger. Both films were commercial disappointments.
She stayed at that studio to make the western Rawhide (1951) with Tyrone Power, and the romantic drama I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1951).
Hayward then starred in three massive successes: David and Bathsheba (1951) with Gregory Peck, the most popular film of the year; With a Song in My Heart (1952), a biopic of Jane Froman, which earned her an Oscar nomination; and The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), with Peck and Ava Gardner.
RKO borrowed Hayward for The Lusty Men (1952) with Robert Mitchum, then she went back to Fox for The President's Lady (1953), playing Rachel Jackson alongside Charlton Heston; White Witch Doctor (1953) again a co-star with Mitchum; Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954), as Messalina; Garden of Evil (1954) with Gary Cooper and Richard Widmark; and Untamed (1955) with Tyrone Power. Hayward then starred with Clark Gable in Soldier of Fortune (1955), a CinemaScope film that was a box office miss.
Although Hayward never truly became known as a singer—she disliked her own singing–she portrayed singers in several films. However, in I'll Cry Tomorrow—whose vocals were once widely attributed to professional ghost singer Marni Nixon—Hayward sang the vocals undubbed and appears on the soundtrack. Hayward performed in the musical biography of singer Jane Froman in the 1952 film, With a Song in My Heart, a role which won her the Golden Globe for Best Actress In A Leading Role – Musical Or Comedy. Jane Froman's voice was recorded and used for the film as Hayward acted out the songs.
In 1956, she was cast by Howard Hughes to play Bortai in the historical epic The Conqueror, as John Wayne's leading lady. It was critically deprecated but a commercial success. She did a comedy with Kirk Douglas, Top Secret Affair (1956) which flopped.
Hayward's last film with Wanger, I Want to Live! (1958), in which she played death row inmate Barbara Graham, was a critical and commercial success and won Hayward the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal. Many movie pundits have referred to her performance in I Want to Live! as the greatest Hollywood acting performance by any actress at any time. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that her performance was "so vivid and so shattering ... Anyone who could sit through this ordeal without shivering and shuddering is made of stone." Hayward received 37% of the film's net profits.
In 1961, Hayward starred as a shrewd working girl who becomes the wife of the state's next governor (Dean Martin) and ultimately takes over the office herself in Ada. The same year, she played Rae Smith in Ross Hunter's lavish remake of Back Street, which also starred John Gavin and Vera Miles. Neither film was particularly successful; nor were I Thank a Fool (1962) at MGM, Stolen Hours (1963), and Where Love Has Gone (1964), which co-starred Bette Davis.
She continued to act into the early 1970s, when she was diagnosed with brain cancer.
She appeared in the TV movie Heat of Anger (1972) and the western film The Revengers (1972) with William Holden.
Her final film role was as Dr. Maggie Cole in the 1972 made-for-TV drama Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole. Intended to be the pilot episode for a television series, "Maggie Cole" was never produced because of Hayward's failing health. Her last public appearance was at the Academy Awards telecast in 1974 to present the Best Actress award despite being very ill. With Charlton Heston's support, she was able to present the award.
In 1957, Hayward married Floyd Eaton Chalkley, commonly known as Eaton Chalkley, a successful Georgia rancher and businessman who had worked as a federal agent. The marriage was a happy one. They lived on a farm near Carrollton, Georgia, and owned property across the state line in Cleburne County, just outside Heflin, Alabama. Profile She became a popular figure in the area in the late 1950s. Chalkley died on January 9, 1966 due to a brain tumor. Hayward went into mourning and did little acting for several years. She took up residence in Florida, because she preferred not to live in her Georgia home without her husband. On June 30, 1966, she was baptism Catholic Church by Father Daniel J. McGuire at SS. Peter and Paul's Roman Catholic Church in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh. Hayward had met McGuire, an acquaintance of Chalkley, in Rome eight years prior.
Before her Catholic baptism, Hayward had been a proponent of astrology. She particularly relied on the advice of Carroll Righter, who called himself "the Gregarious Aquarius" and the self-proclaimed "Astrologer to the Stars", who informed her that the optimal time to sign a film contract was exactly 2:47 a.m., prompting her to set her alarm for 2:45 so she could be sure to follow his instructions.
The question is still open as to whether high residual radiation levels after the above ground nuclear explosions in Yucca Flat, only from the set of The Conqueror, led directly to her relatively early death.
Susan Hayward has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6251 Hollywood Boulevard.
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