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TCM Party, Summer Under the Stars spotlights Rita Hayworth ('Gilda')

moviesAug 29, 202630435

Turner Classic Movies devotes its Saturday, August 29 Summer Under the Stars lineup to Rita Hayworth, running a 12-film marathon that spotlights her best-known work including Gilda (1946) and the nightclub number "Put the Blame on Mame." TCM’s piece frames Hayworth as the quintessential femme fatale whose on-screen vamp and dancer persona, called the "love goddess", masked a more vulnerable private life. Born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, Hayworth started as a professional dancer with her parents as the Dancing Cansinos before signing a short Fox contract in the mid-1930s and later joining Columbia under Harry Cohn. Columbia reshaped her image from Rita Cansino to Rita Hayworth through a dramatic makeover; she rose from B pictures to a breakout role in Howard Hawks’s Only Angels Have Wings (1939). The TCM schedule also lists Cover Girl (1944) at 10:00 PM ET as part of the day, underscoring both Hayworth’s musical-dance work and her lasting association with glamour roles. Tonight’s marathon assembles those phases of her career for viewers to trace her transformation from nightclub dancer to Hollywood star.

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