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Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner in Brooklyn, New York to Walter Marrenner and Ellen Pearson. Her maternal grandparents were from Sweden. She began her career as a photographer's model, going to Hollywood in 1937, aiming to secure the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. Her screen name was chosen by her management because it was "as close to Rita Hayworth as we can get away with."
Career
Although she did not win the role of Scarlett O'Hara, Hayward found employment playing bit parts until she was cast in Beau Geste (1939) opposite Gary Cooper. During the war years, she played leading lady to John Wayne twice, in Reap the Wild Wind (1942) and The Fighting Seabees (1944). She also starred in the film version of The Hairy Ape (1944). Later in 1955, she was cast by Howard Hughes to play Bortai in the historical epic The Conqueror, again opposite John Wayne.
In Yank, the Army Weekly (1945)
After the war, she established herself as one of Hollywood's most popular leading ladies in films such as Tap Roots (1948), My Foolish Heart (1949), David and Bathsheba (1951), and With a Song in My Heart (1952).
In 1947, she received the first of five Academy Award nominations for her role as an alcoholic nightclub singer in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman.
During the 1950s she won acclaim for her dramatic performances as President Andrew Jackson's melancholic wife in The President's Lady (1953); the alcoholic actress Lillian Roth in I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), based on Roth's best-selling autobiography of the same name, for which she received a Cannes award; and the real-life California murderer Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958). Hayward's portrayal of Graham won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. She replaced the fired Judy Garland as Helen Lawson in the 1968 film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls.
She received good reviews for her performance in a Las Vegas production of Mame, but left the production because she felt unprepared for the demands the role made on her voice[citation needed]. She blamed herself for not wanting to spend the money on voice lessons that might have allowed her to keep the role. She was replaced by Oscar-winning actress and singer Celeste Holm.
She continued to act throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Her final film role was as Dr. Maggie Cole in the 1972 made-for-TV drama Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole. (The film was intended to be a pilot episode for a weekly television series, but due to Hayward's cancer diagnosis and failing health, the series was never produced.) Her last public appearance was at the 1975 Oscar telecast to present the Best Actress award, despite the fact she was very ill. With Charlton Heston supporting her, and having been given massive doses of dopamine, she managed to get through it. Hayward later stated, "that's the last time I do that."
Personal life
According to the Internet Movie Database, Susan's personality was usually described as cold, icy, and aloof. She did not like socializing with crowds. She disliked homosexuals and effeminate men. Her taste in love ran strictly to the masculine, and both of her husbands were rugged Southerners. She loved sport fishing, and owned three ocean going boats for that purpose. Movie directors enjoyed Susan's professionalism and her high standards. She was considered easy to work with, but she was not chummy after the cameras stopped.
In December 1964, she was baptized a Catholic at SS Peter and Paul's Roman Catholic Church on Larimar Avenue, in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh, by one Father McGuire. She had met McGuire while in China and promised him that if she ever converted, he would be the one to baptize her.
Hayward died at age 57 on March 14, 1975, of pneumonia-related complications of her brain cancer, having survived considerably longer than doctors had originally predicted. She was cremated and buried next to her second husband, Eaton Chalkley, with whom she had converted to Roman Catholicism, in Carrollton, Georgia. Chalkley was by all accounts the love of Hayward's life[who?], and they had lived together happily in Carrollton for years before his death in 1966. She was survived by her two sons.
Hayward has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6251 Hollywood Boulevard.