Susan Hayward

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.[12] 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).[13]

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 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.[12]

In 1939 Paramount Studios signed her to a $250 per week contract. Hayward had her first breakthrough in the part of Isobel in Beau Geste (1939) opposite Gary Cooper and Ray Milland. She held the small, but important, haunting love of youth role as recalled by the Geste brothers while they searched for a valuable sapphire known as "the blue water" during desert service in the Foreign Legion; the film was hugely successful.[14]

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" film, Among the Living (1941).

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.[15] 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.[16] 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.[16][17] She was next in Paramount's all-star musical review Star Spangled Rhythm (1943) that featured its nonmusical contract players as well.[18]

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.[19]

Sam Bronston borrowed her for Jack London (1943) at UA then she was Wayne's love interest in The Fighting Seabees (1944) at Republic, the biggest budgeted film in that company's history.[20]

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 Noir film, which was Harold Clurman's only movie as director.[21]

Susan Hayward in Smash Up (1947)

After the war, Hayward's career took off when producer Walter Wanger signed her for a seven-year contract at $100,000 a year.[22] Her first film was Canyon Passage (1946).

In 1947, she received the first of five Academy Award 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,[23] it was popular with audiences and a box office success, launching Hayward as a star.[24]

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.[25]

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.[26]

She stayed at that studio to make Rawhide (1951) with Tyrone Power, and 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;[26] 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.[27]

MGM hired her to play the alcoholic showgirl/actress Lillian Roth in I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955),[28] based on Roth's best-selling autobiography of the same name, for which she received a Cannes award. It was a major financial success.[29]

Although Hayward never truly became known as a singer--she disliked her own singing--[30] she portrayed singers in several films. However, in I'll Cry Tomorrow--whose vocals were once widely attributed to professional ghost singer Marni Nixon--[31] Hayward sang the vocals undubbed and appears on the soundtrack.[32] Susan 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 Comedy film. Jane Froman's voice was recorded and used for the film as Hayward acted out the songs.

Hayward receiving an Oscar for Best Actress in I Want to Live (1958)

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.[33] She did a comedy with Kirk Douglas, Top Secret Affair (1956) which flopped.[34]

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. 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."[35] Hayward received 37% of the film's net profits.[36]

Hayward made Thunder in the Sun (1959) with Jeff Chandler, a mediocre wagon train picture about French Basque pioneers,[37] and then Woman Obsessed (1959) at Fox.

In 1961, Hayward starred as a 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 (1963) at MGM, Stolen Hours (1963), and Where Love Has Gone (1964).

Hayward was reunited with Joseph 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).[38]

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 and she had to leave the production.[39][40]

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 television series, "Maggie Cole" was never produced because of Hayward's failing health.[41] Her last public appearance was at the Academy Awards telecast in 1974 to present the Best Actress award despite being very ill.[42] With Charlton Heston's support, she was able to present the award.[43]