SUSAN HAYWARD CENTENNIAL
by Nathaniel R
We're doing our Susan Hayward party all out of chronology and will end with an early role. It's our way of saying that the big movie stars never really die but live on in their films. But for the penultimate stop in this Hayward fest, let's take a lot at the 1973 Oscars. She made her last public appearance on April 2nd, 1974 when she presented Best Actress with Charlton Heston at the Oscars. They were contemporaries at the peak of their stardom in the 1950s (and both won leading Oscars in the late 1950s) but Heston's career was still going strong at this point while Hayward had only intermittently working...
Tangent: this isn't about Hayward but look how pissed off or surprised the contenders look when Glenda Jackson wins her second so quickly after her first... Don't you wish today's "losers" would let their emotions show?
What people weren't aware of watching the Oscars was that she was very sick and the trademark red hair was a wig. Eleven months later she had died of a malignant brain tumor from cancer.
There are competing ideas about why she had cancer. Officially it was lung cancer from her chain smoking that had spread to her brain. Unofficially, according to a myth that doesn't seem at all implausible (given Utah's history), the cancer was a result of nuclear testing in the deserts of St George where she filmed The Conqueror (1956) with John Wayne. Supposedly nearly half of that film's 200+ cast and crew died relatively young due to various forms of cancer.
But we'll end with a happier anecdote that is related to this final Oscar appearance.
Susan Hayward was actually buried in this very dress, per her request! It was custom designed for her by Nolan Miller. It seems fitting that such an ambitious Oscar-hungry queen would want to look like the movie star she was in a way that was so connected to her perennial Best Actress glory when finally laid to rest.
Previously in our Hayward Fest
My Foolish Heart (1949)
David and Bathsheba (1951)
I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955)
...and from the archive
I Want to Live! (1958)