PORT TOWNSEND – She died in 1987 at the age of 68, but the allure of the woman known as the “Love Goddess of the 1940s” drew a crowd to the Rose Theater on Sunday.
“I grew up watching her and drooling,” said Bob Logan. “‘Gilda’ was the tops with her. It was sexier than hell.”
Logan, 74, and his wife, Donna, of Port Townsend were among the 100-plus movie fans who came to see Sunday’s premier of Turner Classic Movies’ film biography of Rita Hayworth at the Rose Theater. A benefit for the Port Townsend Film Festival, the film biography was introduced by TCM host Robert Osborne.
“We still receive a lot of mail, a lot of requests for her films from young people,” Osborne said. “There’s something about her — she had such a glamorous life. She married Orson Wells, she married Prince Ali Khan. It has all the makings of a great fairy tale.”
Narrated by Kim Bassinger, the one-hour biography documented Hayworth’s transformation from her Spanish father’s 13-year-old professional dancing partner to the red-haired pin-up girl of the 1940s, including clips from “Only Angels Have Wings” with Cary Grant in 1939, “The Strawberry Blond” with James Cagney and “Cover Girl” with Gene Kelly.
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The rest of the story appears in the Monday Peninsula Daily News.