Oscar Actors: Hayward, Susan–Background, Career, Awards, Filmography (By Year)

Susan Hayward Career Summary:

 

Susan Hayward (born Edythe Marrenner; June 30, 1917 – March 14, 1975) was an American actress and model, based known for her film portrayals of tough real-life women.

After working as a fashion model, 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 Best Actress Oscar 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 award for her portrayal of death row inmate Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958).

After Hayward’s second marriage and subsequent move to Georgia, her films became infrequent, although she continued acting in film and television until 1972.

She died in 1975 of brain cancer.

Susan Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner on June 30, 1917, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the youngest of three children to Ellen (née Pearson; 1888–1958) and Walter Marrenner (1879–1938). Her paternal grandmother, Katherine Harrigan, was an actress from County Cork, Ireland. Her mother was of Swedish descent. She had an older sister, Florence, and an older brother, Walter, Jr.

In 1924, Marrenner 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 distinctive hip swivel later in life.

Hayward was educated at Public School 181 and graduated from the Girls’ Commercial High School in June 1935 (later renamed Prospect Heights High School). Hayward attended that school in the mid-1930s, although she only recollects 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.

She 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.

Talent agent Max Arnow changed Marrenner’s name to Susan Hayward once she started her six-month contract for $50 a week with Warner’s. 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 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.

In 1939, Paramount signed her to a $250 per week contract, and cast her in what would become her first breakthrough, the part of Isobel in Beau Geste (1939) opposite Gary Cooper and Ray Milland. The critically acclaimed film was hugely successful at the box-office.

Paramount put Hayward as the second lead in Our Leading Citizen (1939) with Bob Burns, 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 played the lead in a “B” film, Among the Living (1941).

Cecil B. De Mille gave her a supporting role in Reap the Wild Wind (1942), co-starring 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 costarred in I Married a Witch (1942) with Fredric March and Veronica Lake, as the fiancé of Wallace Wooly (March) before Lake’s witch appears in the 1940s from a Puritanical stake burning 300 years prior. 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 sold to United Artists.

She was next in Paramount’s all-star musical review Star Spangled Rhythm (1943), which featured its nonmusical contract players as well.

Hayward appeared with William Holden in Young and Willing (1943), a Paramount film distributed by UA.

She was then in Republic’s Hit Parade of 1943 (1943), with her singing voice dubbed by Jeanne Darrell.

Sam Bronston borrowed her for Jack London (1943) at UA, then she was John Wayne’s love interest in The Fighting Seabees (1944) at Republic, the biggest budgeted film of that company.

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).

RKO gave Hayward her first top billing in Deadline at Dawn (1946), a Clifford Odets written film noir, which was Harold Clurman’s only movie as director.

After the war, Hayward’s career took off when producer Walter Wanger signed her for seven-year contract at $100,000 a year.

Her first film was Canyon Passage (1946).

In 1947, she received the first of five Oscar 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.

RKO used her again for They Won’t Believe Me (1947), then she worked for Wanger on The Lost Moment (1948), and Tap Roots (1948); both films lost money, but the latter was widely seen.

At Universal, she was in The Saxon Charm (1948) and she did Tulsa (1949) for Wanger. Both films were commercial disappointments.

Hayward went over to 20th Century Fox to make House of Strangers (1949) for director Joseph Mankiewicz, beginning a long association with that studio.

Sam Goldwyn borrowed her for My Foolish Heart (1949), then she went back to Fox for I’d Climb the Highest Mountain (1951), which was a hit.

She stayed at that studio to make Rawhide (1951) with Tyrone Power, and I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1951).

Career Peak, Three Big Successes: 1951-1952

Hayward then starred in three massive successes: David and Bathsheba (1951) with Gregory Peck, the year’s most popular film; 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 costar 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.

MGM hired her to play the alcoholic showgirl-actress Lillian Roth in I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955), based on Roth’s best-selling autobiography, for which she received a Cannes award. It was a major financial success.

Although Hayward never 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 biopic of singer Jane Froman in the 1952 With a Song in My Heart. 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 reviled 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 Best Actress Oscar. Hayward received 37% of the film’s net profits.

Hayward made Thunder in the Sun (1959) with Jeff Chandler, a mediocre wagon train picture about French Basque pioneers, and then Woman Obsessed (1959) at Fox.

In 1961, Hayward starred in Ada, as a working girl who becomes the wife of the state’s next governor (Dean Martin) and ultimately takes over the office herself.

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 successful; nor were I Thank a Fool (1963) at MGM, Stolen Hours (1963), and Where Love Has Gone (1964).

Hayward was reunited with Mankiewicz in The Honey Pot (1967).

Then she replaced Judy Garland as Helen Lawson in the film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls (1967).

She received good reviews for her performance at Caesars Palace in the Las Vegas production of “Mame” that opened in December 1968. She was replaced by Celeste Holm in March 1969, after her voice gave out.

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 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 TV series, “Maggie Cole” was never produced because of Hayward’s failing health.

Her last public appearance was at the Oscar telecast in 1974, as presenter of the Best Actress award–despite being very ill. With Charlton Heston’s support, she was able to present the award.

During World War II Hayward volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen to support the war effort, and this is where she met her first husband, actor Jess Barker. They were married on July 23, 1944, and had two children, fraternal twin sons named Gregory and Timothy, born February 19, 1945. The marriage was turbulent, with a judge granting an interlocutory divorce decree on August 17, 1954. During the contentious divorce proceedings, Hayward stayed in the US rather than join the Hong Kong location shoot for the film Soldier of Fortune. She shot her scenes on a sound stage with co-star Clark Gable in Hollywood. A few brief, distant scenes of Gable and a Hayward double walking near landmarks in Hong Kong were combined with the indoor shots. By April 1955, the stress of divorce proceedings and overwork prompted a suicide attempt.

In 1957, Hayward married Floyd Eaton Chalkley, known as Eaton Chalkley, a Georgia rancher and businessman who had worked as federal agent. Although an unusual husband for a Hollywood movie star, 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. She became a popular figure in the area in the 1950s. In December 1964, she and her husband were baptized Catholic by Father Daniel J. McGuire at SS Peter and Paul’s Roman Catholic Church on Larimer Avenue, in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh, fulfilling a promise made in China to McGuire, that if she ever converted, he would be the one to baptize her. Chalkley died on January 9, 1966. 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.

Before her Catholic baptism, Hayward was 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 am, causing her to set her alarm for 2:45 so she could be sure to obey his instructions.[49] Hayward was a lifelong registered Republican, who endorsed Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and appeared at the 1953 Republican Rally.

Hayward’s doctor found a lung tumor in March 1972 that metastasized, and after a seizure in April 1973, she was diagnosed with brain cancer.

On March 14, 1975, she suffered a seizure in her Beverly Hills home and died at the age of 57.

Theories about the radioactive fallout from atmospheric atomic bomb tests surround the making of The Conqueror in St. George, Utah. Some production members including Hayward, John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead, Pedro Armendáriz (who committed suicide), and director Dick Powell later succumbed to cancer and cancer-related illnesses.

As ascertained by People magazine in 1980, out of a cast and crew totaling 220 people, 91 of them developed some form of cancer, and 46 had died of the disease.

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

Filmography

1937 Hollywood Hotel Starlet at table Uncredited
1938

The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse Patient Scenes deleted
The Sisters Telephone operator, Uncredited
Girls on Probation Gloria, Adams
Comet Over Broadway Amateur Actress, Uncredited
Campus Cinderella Co-Ed Short subject
1939

Beau Geste Isobel Rivers
Our Leading Citizen Judith Schofield
$1,000 a Touchdown Betty McGlen

1941

Adam Had Four Sons Hester Stoddard
Sis Hopkins Carol Hopkins
Among the Living Millie Pickens
1942 Reap the Wild Wind Cousin Drusilla Alston
The Forest Rangers Tana “Butch” Mason
I Married a Witch Estelle Masterson
Star Spangled Rhythm Herself – Genevieve in Priorities Skit
A Letter from Bataan. Mrs. Mary Lewis

1943 Young and Willing Kate Benson
Hit Parade of 1943 Jill Wright
Jack London Charmian Kittredge

1944 The Fighting Seabees Constance Chesley
The Hairy Ape Mildred Douglas
And Now Tomorrow Janice Blair
Skirmish on the Home Front Molly Miller Short subject

1946

Deadline at Dawn June Goffe
Canyon Passage Lucy Overmire

1947

Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman Angelica “Angie” / “Angel” Evans Conway Nominated-Best Actress Oscar
They Won’t Believe Me Verna Carlson
The Lost Moment Tina Bordereau

1948

Tap Roots Morna Dabney
The Saxon Charm Janet Busch

1949:

Tulsa Cherokee Lansing
House of Strangers Irene Bennett
My Foolish Heart Eloise Winters, Oscar Nominated—Best Actress

1951

Screen Snapshots: Hopalong in Hoppy Land, Herself, Short subject
I’d Climb the Highest Mountain Mary Elizabeth Eden Thompson
Rawhide, Vinnie Holt
I Can Get It for You Wholesale, Harriet Boyd
David and Bathsheba, Bathsheba

1952

With a Song in My Heart, Jane Froman; Nominated for Best Actress
The Snows of Kilimanjaro Helen
The Lusty Men Louise Merritt

1953

The President’s Lady, Rachel Donelson
White Witch Doctor, Ellen Burton

1954

Demetrius and the Gladiators, Messalina
Garden of Evil, Leah Fuller

1955

Untamed Katie O’Neill (Kildare) (Van Riebeck)
Soldier of Fortune Mrs. Jane Hoyt
I’ll Cry Tomorrow Lillian Roth; Best Actress Award (Cannes Film Fest); Nominated Best Actress Oscar; Nominated BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress

1956

The Conqueror, Bortai

1957

Top Secret Affair, Dorothy “Dottie” Peale

1958:

I Want to Live! Barbara Graham; Best Actress Oscar;  David di Donatello Award; NY Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress; Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress

1959

Thunder in the Sun Gabrielle Dauphin
Woman Obsessed Mary Sharron

1961

The Marriage-Go-Round Content Delville
Ada, Ada Gillis
Back Street Rae Smith

1962

I Thank a Fool Christine Allison

1963

Stolen Hours Laura Pember

1964

Where Love Has Gone, Valerie Hayden Miller

1967

The Honey Pot, Mrs. Lone Star Crockett Sheridan
Valley of the Dolls, Helen Lawson
Think Twentieth, Herself

1972

The Revengers Elizabeth Reilly
Heat of Anger Jessie Fitzgerald TV movie
Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole Dr. Maggie Cole TV movie

Box office star: rankings

Hayward was among the most popular stars in the country:

1951 – 19th (US)
1952 – 9th (US)
1953 – 9th (US)
1954 – 14th (US)
1955 – 19th (US)
1956 – 13th (US)
1959 – 10th (US)
1961 – 19th (US)