Welcome to another episode of You Must,

and remember this, the podcast dedicated to exploring the secrets and or forgotten histories

of Hollywood's first century, part of the Panoply Network. I'm your host, Karina Longworth.

This is episode five of our series about stars during wartime or Star Wars.

If you're familiar with that other Star Wars series, then I suppose this would be the

Empire Strikes Back of the Peace. Instead of brash, arrogant, but talented pilot, Han Solo,

we have brash, arrogant, but talented, multi-hyphenate genius, Orson Wells. And instead of headstrong,

love-struck, iconically-coffed, princess Leia, we have Rita Hayworth.

The stunning red-headed dancer-slash actress, best known today as the star of Gilda, whose

pin-up photo played a key role in the Shawshank Redemption, was certainly in love-struck

and iconically-coffed. But the persona she projected of a self-confident sex goddess who could

wrap the men of the world around her little finger effortlessly was a lie. Or maybe

more accurately, it was an invention, forced into show business by her sexually abusive

father at age 12, manipulated into movie stardom by her pimple-like first husband, and

imprisoned within that stardom by Columbia Studio Chief Harry Cone. Rita Hayworth made

it to her mid-twenties, operating on the assumption that her true identity was a dirty

secret that had to be protected at all costs. Hayworth got to have a brief respite from

this personality crisis in the early 1940s when she fell in love with and married Orson

Wells. Wells at first was fascinated by the disparity between the Rita Hayworth, the

world thought they knew, and the shy homebody who spent much of their marriage begging Wells

to take her away from the Hollywood life that she hated. At first, Wells embraced the

role of Savior, and his relationship with Rita thrived during World War II as the

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