Rita Hayworth-Early Life

 

Hayworth was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1918 as Margarita Carmen Cansino, She was the oldest child of two dancers, Eduardo Cansino, Sr., and Volga Hayworth. The Catholic couple had married in 1917. They also had two sons: Eduardo, Jr. and Vernon.

Margarita's father wanted her to become a professional dancer. Her mother hoped she would become an actress. Her paternal grandfather Antonio Cansino was renowned as a Spanish classical dancer. Antonio Cansino popularized the bolero and his dancing school in Madrid was world famous. Rita later recalled,

From the time I was three and a half ... as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons." I didn't like it very much ... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood.

Hayworth attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex, where she was taught by her uncle Angel Cansino. She performed publicly from the age of six. In 1926, the eight year old Hayworth  was featured in “La Fiesta”, a short film for Warner Bros.

In 1927, her father took the family to Hollywood. He believed that dancing could be featured in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio, where he taught such Hollywood luminaries as James Cagney and Jean Harlow. During the Great Depression, he lost all his investments, as musicals were no longer in vogue and commercial interest in his dancing classes waned. He partnered with his daughter to form "The Dancing Cansinos". Since under California law, Margarita was too young to work in nightclubs and bars, her father took her with him to work across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. In the early 1930s, it was a popular tourist spot for people from Los Angeles. Due to her working, Hayworth never graduated from high school; she completed ninth grade at Hamilton High in Los Angeles.

At the age of 16, Hayworth took a bit part in the film “Cruz Diablo”.  It led to another in “In Caliente” with the Mexican actress Dolores del Río. Hayworth danced with her father in such nightspots as the Foreign and the Caliente clubs. Winfield Sheehan, the head of the Fox Film Corporation, saw her dancing at the Caliente Club and quickly arranged for Hayworth to do a screen test a week later. Impressed by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract at Fox, under the name Rita Cansino, the first of name changes for her film career.