"Channeling Rita", Part One

With all the redheads on my father’s side of the family, you would think the transition from ‘cute little red-haired girl’ to 'fiery beauty' would be an effortless rite of passage. Unfortunately, for many years, I was more “Peppermint Patty” than ‘Rita’. My Aunt Donna had a postcard of Rita on her vanity’s mirror. While watching her re-apply her crimson lips, I asked who the girl on the postcard was. “M.~! All those old movies you watch and you haven’t a clue who that is?! THAT’S Rita Hayworth!” After my face lost its shame-filled blush, I defended myself by saying, “but she had BLONDE HAIR in ‘The Lady From Shanghai’…” My Aunt Donna threw her head back taking a good laugh from my naivety. “Bubbee…” she cooed, “you have to realize Rita was only HOT when she was a redhead.”
Rita Hayworth, a brunette, became famous after dyeing her hair auburn; my aunt was a ‘murderous-red’ redhead known for toning down the fieriness of her hair color by adding brown rinses. “...just trying to fit in.” she would answer when asked why she would ever do this; but she never did. For most of her life my aunt had a Rita-esque quality about her; she was a firecracker to other women’s sparklers. Being dramatic to a fault, she was ‘banned’ from some social events for entrances that began with a hair flip, and ended with a hand on her hip and a ‘if you think that’s something, just you wait’ smirk. Only the men seemed to appreciate this.
My lovely aunt had over thirty years of ‘devil may care!’ in her walk, speech and personality by the time I was a teen. My pubescent frame inherited curves from both sides of my family somewhere between ballet class and cheerleading. Even with various comments I was oblivious to this development until I was standing at my locker before homeroom one morning. I tucked my auburn hair behind my ear and realized on the other side of that hair, a group of boys was staring. I was wearing a pink dress that had gotten a bit more ‘fitted’ in the hip area since the previous school year. I self-consciously asked, “What’s wrong?”, to which they snickered “Nothing…you just look good~ in pink…and blue…and white…and green…”My homeroom teacher, Mr. Romero, came to break up their chuckling; he saw me at my locker and realized from their behavior and my flushed face, they might have said something untoward to me. “Lauder are you okay?” “I think…” “What did they do?” “Just...I don’t know…they said I looked good in pink…What does that mean?” I assumed it might be some strange male code for something else. Mr. Romero chuckled and reassured me, although mis-communicated, it WAS a compliment. After that, I became more self-conscious, like a normal teenaged girl.

I became a member of the Drama Club a few years before that, because none of the other clubs fit my schedule. For Hispanic Heritage Month, we put on a tribute to Hispanic Entertainers; Mr. Romero, one of our club advisors, encouraged the group to choose me as their Rita Hayworth. After a few days of Mr. Romero remarking in homeroom during attendance roll “Ah! And Margarita is present…” when he got to my name, I sweetly asked if he’d mistaken my name. He laughed and explained that since I would play Rita in the tribute, he was referring to me by her christened name. “You DO realize you must develop your own tribute to her?” I assured him I did and asked why- besides my hair- did he want them to choose me. “I don’t like to be sexy, Mr. Romero”, I pointed out. He laughed heartily then said, “You are so funny Lauder! Rita was funny too. She loved to sing and dance- like you; and from all I have read about her, LIKE YOU she didn’t like all the time being sexy. You see…you are the perfect Rita!”
This was NOT how I understood Rita Hayworth from my aunt and grandmother’s descriptions. According to them, Rita was the embodiment of the feminine mystique; she the perfect foil to male dominance- not a “will” but a “maybe”. ‘Men stand up straighter and smooth down their hair when a woman like Rita entered the room’, my grandmother remarked. But then I remembered what my mother told me about Old Hollywood: “It was all image; no one really knew who they were, so people and the studios made up things…” I did a little more research on Rita and on the day of the tribute, my mother appeased my stage fright by roundly denying she would even step foot in my school…then sneaking in just before curtain call.

I was literally PRAYING everything would go just right: the tape, the lowering of the frame…my vintage gloves- EVERYTHING had to hit cue and not go over the time limit. I’d run the poor sophomore nuts that was in charge of sound . “Take care you SLOWLY turn it up after counting to ten when I reach THE MIDDLE of the stage…” I’m sure if there is a Revenge List on that young man’s person today, my name is on it! Rita Moreno’s tribute was almost over- even this scene had given me butterflies…one of my best friends, Lisa, had obsessed so over her Rita-as-Anita in “West Side Story” routine. As Lisa ran from the stage squealing and exhilarated, I fussed over my gloves once more and prepared to walk on stage.

Margarita Carmen Cansino, known to we mere mortals as Rita Hayworth. One of the original bombshells, her image was pasted to a test A-bomb in 1946.