Well-researched and well-written, but a little disappointing that its focus is almost entirely on the abuse and sadness Rita suffered throughout her life and her legal troubles. It took me a year and a half to finish this book because it was so depressing that I rarely felt like reading it. It was a pretty interesting book nonetheless, and it's always nice to read biographies about Old Hollywood stars that use real sources and interviews with people that actually knew the subject.

Profound book. Profoundly sad. Profound investigation of unhappiness.

The thesis that runs through this book is how the physical, emotional, and incestuous abuse that Hayworth's father inflicted in her teen years stamped the rest of her life.

Rita Hayworth was naturally shy and introverted, but was forced to dance from the age of 12 to earn money for her family. She traveled on the road with her father to perform alluring Spanish dances with him as a partner. To make matters worse, she was expected to take care of her father's sexual needs in her mother's absence.

The rest of her life was a quest for love, safety--to be taken care of. She sought out controlling, often abusive men, yet eventually would rebel against them by cutting them out of her life. She felt that she had to be a highly sexualized love goddess onscreen, while constantly wanting to escape Hollywood.

There was no solace for her in the end, because she developed Alzheimer's disease at a relatively young age.

(I listened to the audio version of this book.)

My main interest in this book was to figure out what Rita's deal was. Plain-janes of the world are wondering why a woman born with as much power as Rita had, for such beauty is power, lived a sad life. That's what people say when they see her - "That's Rita Hayworth. She was gorgeous but she had a sad life." It seems to me, through reading this book and others, that she was born about twenty years too soon.

Twenty years would've brought the feminist revolution to her in her prime instead of her slide into dementia. Perhaps she wouldn't have been a victim of child labour or incest. Perhaps she would've been able to stand on her own two feet instead of marrying the world's most famous assholes as a crutch.

As it is, she was like a living version of her most famous photo. Every man wanted to have her, and after they did, they instantly ran into the arms of other women. Every man Leaming spoke to mentions that something inside of Rita was broken. Leaming attributes this to the circumstances of her childhood but I wonder if something was organically wrong in addition to that. Twenty years would've also worn some of the stigma off of psychological treatment, which Rita clearly needed. No one ever helped her with that, either.

Leaming did a good job with this book. I felt that occasionally she interjected too much psychoanalysis but it wasn't a problem. It's a fast read. Anyone who enjoys biography should try to find a copy of this book; it's out of print and rarely found in libraries so you may have to do as I did and buy it through online resellers.

I think this may be the saddest book I’ve ever read.

Every Hollywood starlet suffered more than Jesus Christ.

Positively heartbreaking.

It was interesting to learn about Rita Hayworth's life. Before reading this, I knew nearly nothing about her. It took me an extremely long time to read this book, I had to be in a certain mood to read it. My only complaint was the author spent way too much time psychoanalyzing Rita.

I give this book a 3.8. I don't know why but a while back I got the urge to learn about Rita Hayworth. This book had the best reviews so I ordered it.
I had no idea Rita had such a horrible childhood. It truly is so sad what she went through as a kid and the subsequent effects it had on her adult life. Rita never wanted to become an actress, but due to her childhood, she reluctantly agreed to continue acting as the sex symbol that she'd become thru her dancing years.
While this boom is very informative, it went, in great detail about her life and first 4 marriages. Her 5th marriage, end of her career, and subsequent alzheimer's diagnosis was rushed.
For anyone looking to read up on Ms. Hayworth, I highly recommend this book. Don't expect a happy ending though. Her life was not a happy one.