Our Star for December was one of Hollywood’s top film stars in the 1950’s. Her personal life remarkably paralleled her most outstanding screen roles. Her own struggles with alcohol and marriage may have helped her stellar onscreen performances. Her tribulations also led her to religion which we will allude to later.
Born Edythe Marrenner in Brooklyn in 1917 she was the youngest of three of Swedish and Irish ancestry. Growing up during the depression Edythe was drawn to the movies and acting began for her in childhood. In High School she was named “Most Dramatic” by her class graduating in 1935. At age 18 she and her flaming red locks auditioned for the part of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. As we all know she didn’t get the part, but her audition was so impressive she landed a studio contract anyway and her new stage name (nom de guerre) Susan Hayward. The ensuing years had her in small supporting roles but that would change for the 5-time Oscar nominated actress. My Foolish Heart 1949, With a Song in My Heart 1952, I’ll Cry Tomorrow 1955 and capped off by her Academy Award for I Want To Live in 1958 based on the life of death row inmate Barbara Graham.
As we back up a bit biology interfered in her rise to stardom when she became pregnant with twins sired by actor Jess Barker and such was the time when the studio forced her to marry in order to maintain her contract. Their marriage was a tempestuous one fueled by alcohol. Jess and Susan had fraternal twins Gregory and Timothy born in 1945. They divorced in 1954 but by then her star had her at the pinnacle of her success. Inner demons though found her trying suicide the very next year. Recovery in the marriage department wasn’t too far away as she wedded Floyd Chalkley in 1957. Floyd was a former Federal Agent and it resulted in a happy marriage for them both. They lived in Georgia away from the bright city lights of Hollywood.
In 1964 as we alluded to earlier Susan and her husband were baptized Catholic by Father McGuire in Pittsburgh. She had met the priest in China and promised him if she ever converted it would be him to baptize her. Floyd Chalkley died in January of 1966 and Susan in mourning did little in the way of acting for the next few years and moved to Florida as Georgia reminded her too much of her beloved husband.
Before her conversion to Catholicism Susan was a proponent of astrology and was a devotee of Hollywood’s famous Astrologer to the Stars, Gregarious Aquarius. A true believer he convinced her to only sign contracts at 2:47 am and so she set her alarm clock at 2:45.
After being diagnosed with brain cancer in 1973, she would die suffering a seizure in her Hollywood home on Mach 14, 1975 at age 57 she was buried next to Chalkley. Speculation was that she developed cancer from radioactive fallout from atomic bomb tests while filming in Utah with John Wayne. Lending credence to the that theory had Agnes Moorehead, Pedro Armendariz, Director Dick Powell and John Wayne himself all perishing from cancer also. By 1980 of the entire cast and crew of 220 according to People magazine 91 had contracted some form of cancer and 46 died from the disease.
Susan Hayward has her Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
