page_title: Rita Hayworth
section_title: James Hill
hierarchical_section_title: Rita Hayworth / Personal life / Spouses / James Hill
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of Rita Hayworth and James Hill obtaining their marriage license Caption on photograph run in the Cedar Rapids Gazette reads as follows: RITA GETS A LICENSE FOR HER FIFTH MARRIAGE — Actress Rita Hayworth and Producer James Hill are pictured as they filled out an application for a marriage license in Santa Monica Monday. They told newsmen that the wedding—which will be the fifth for Rita and the first for Hill—will take place early next month, with a honeymoon to follow in Europe.
context_page_description: Margarita Carmen Hayworth was an American actress and dancer. She achieved fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars, appearing in 61 films over 37 years. The press coined the term "The Love Goddess" to describe Hayworth after she had become the most glamorous screen idol of the 1940s. She was the top pin-up girl for GIs during World War II.
  Hayworth is perhaps best known for her performance in the 1946 film noir Gilda, opposite Glenn Ford, in which she played the femme fatale in her first major dramatic role. She is also known for her performances in Only Angels Have Wings, The Lady from Shanghai, Pal Joey, and Separate Tables. Fred Astaire, with whom she made two films, You'll Never Get Rich, and You Were Never Lovelier, once called her his favorite dance partner. She also starred in the Technicolor musical Cover Girl, with Gene Kelly. She is listed as one of the top 25 female motion picture stars of all time in the American Film Institute's survey, AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars.
  In 1980, Hayworth was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, which contributed to her death at age 68.
context_section_description: Hayworth began a relationship with film producer James Hill, whom she went on to marry on February 2, 1958. He put her in one of her last major films, Separate Tables. This film was popular and highly praised, although The Harvard Lampoon named her the worst actress of 1958 for her performance. On September 1, 1961, Hayworth filed for divorce, alleging extreme mental cruelty. Hill later wrote Rita Hayworth: A Memoir, in which he suggested that their marriage collapsed because he wanted Hayworth to continue making movies, while she wanted them both to retire from Hollywood.
  In his autobiography, Charlton Heston wrote about Hayworth's brief marriage to Hill. One night, Heston and his wife Lydia joined the couple for dinner at a restaurant in Spain with the director George Marshall and the actor Rex Harrison, Hayworth's co-star in The Happy Thieves. Heston wrote that the occasion "turned into the single most embarrassing evening of my life", describing how Hill heaped "obscene abuse" on Hayworth until she was "reduced to a helpless flood of tears, her face buried in her hands". Heston wrote that the others sat stunned, witnesses to a "marital massacre", and, though he was "strongly tempted to slug him" (Hill), he left with his wife Lydia after she stood up, almost in tears. Heston wrote, "I'm ashamed of walking away from Miss Hayworth's humiliation. I never saw her again."
caption: James Hill and Hayworth obtaining their marriage license in Santa Monica, 1958
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