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                                 SUSAN HAYWARD:  A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE

                                                                          by Fletcher Chan

    Luminous red hair. Translucent skin.  A deep, warm voice that invites intelligent conversation.  And a "sexual brazenness" that film critic Pauline Kael said that only a few actresses can get away with and still look dignified.  Descriptions of Susan Hayward.

    More than one co-star, among them Dana Andrews ("My Foolish Heart") and Lee Bowman ("Smash Up: The Story of a Woman") tried to define her, too.  Yet, they said they had never known an actress with such a divided personality.  Warm, Intimate, generous, and the "most adorable person in the world" one minute, with the ability to turn completely into a cold, detached, tough prima donna the next.

    In a 1980 biography by Beverly Linet, Susan Hayward: Portrait of a Survivor, and probably the best portrait we will have of Susan, Linet unfolds a series of snapshots that attempt to reveal all the dimensions of this fiercely determined and vulnerable woman.

    Born Edythe Marrener, in Brooklyn, New York, June 30, 1918, she was the youngest of three children. She became completely estranged from her sister Florence, a Broadway dancer for a time, but her brother Wally she was fond of and took care of later in life.  She left Florence nothing in her will.

    Susan was a product of an unhappy marriage.  Her sometimes loving but ineffectual and periodically unemployed father seemed overwhelmed by his more dominant and ambitious wife, leaving Susan with ambivalent feelings about them all her life.  The family skirted on the edge of impoverishment during her formative years, and Susan was painful conscious of being poor, of being part of a depressed environment that would weigh her down if she did not do something about it.

    If that were not enough, she was hit by a car as a child and, because of improper treatment, resulted in one of her legs being shorter than the other.  From then on, she had to wear a lift in her left shoe, which gave her a distinctive strut.  Apparently, her walk made her a subject of much ridicule, but she never let on how hurt she felt inside.

    This incident and other aspects of her childhood left deep, emotional scars on her and colored her relationships with people, particularly with those who had more advantages, and with men, whom she associated with power on one hand, and with love, on the other.  She was never able to resolve her feelings about men.  Even as an established star, she remarked on more than one occasion that "this is a man's world; women must struggle within the constraints of this imposing world in the best way they can."

    This focus on a woman suffering and struggling to free herself from the confines of a more powerful society became a major theme in her five Academy Awards nominated roles.

    In high school Susan began to pursue her quest of being an actress, and with a vengeance she went after any parts available in school plays, no matter how big or small.  She was going to be an actress.  Nothing would stop her.

    She seemed to detour for a few years when she became a fairly successful photographer's model in New York.  But it was a result of her modeling exposure that she got to Hollywood in 1937 as a contract player for the David Seiznick Studio.  Contrary to Hollywood folklore, she was not tested for Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With The Wind."  She had potential, like so many contract players had in those rich, paternalistic studio-run days, but it took several years of playing in bit parts or third or fourth leads in pictures like "Girls on Probation" (1938). "Beau Geste" (1939), "Our Leading Citizen" (1939), and "$1,000 A Touchdown" (1939), before her talents began to be realized.

    Meanwhile, she was learning her trade and staying away from the Hollywood casting-couch syndrome. Like many young starlets, she endured humiliation and slights from other actors because of her lack of formal training and brusque treatments from directors.  This only hardened her resolve and made her more determined to succeed.

    Her first real opportunity came in "Adams Had Four Sons" (1941), with Warner Baxter and Ingrid Bergman.  Susan played the coyly mischievous and predatory daughter-in-law, contrasted by the loyal, generous governess, portrayed by Ingrid.  The movie opened to mixed reviews, but Susan got good notices.

    It took almost three years before she got another opportunity to show her talents.  This was in the screen adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's prizewinning play "The Hairy Ape" (1944), with William Bendix and John Loder.  Susan's role was pivotal to the theme of the film, and in it, Susan became a serious actress.  What is more important, she came to the attention of Walter Wanger, an astute independent producer who thought Susan was the right woman to play in what was to become the first of a series of substantial roles for her about women trying to cope in a not-so-benevolent society.

    "Smash Up: The Story of a Woman" (1947) was about a young, shy wife who became an alcoholic because she was not able to adjust to her husband's celebrated career as a singer.  Neglected by him, unable to move in his circle, she turned more and more inward and to alcohol, and, in one terrifying scene, she lost control, endangering her daughter in the process.

    After she lost custody of the child, she kidnapped her and in an alcoholic binge, she almost lost both their lives in a fire.  Somehow she managed to summon up what was left of her inner reserves and rescued the child from the fire.  She herself was badly burned in the process.  In the final scenes, her husband Lee Bowman realized he may have contributed to her problems and he began to understand her needs, thereby setting the stage for hope and reconciliation.

    "Smash Up" was good enough for Susan to receive her first Oscar nomination.  From then on, she was to be judged as the serious, dramatic actress she had strived so hard to be.

    Susan established herself in "My Foolish Heart" (1949) not only as an actress of substance but as a woman's actress.  During that period and well into the 1950s, women came to see her films because Susan created an image on the screen that mirrored their lives as strong, energetic, lonely, desperate, stormy women -- and at the same time, resolute with a kind of inner strength that, with luck, will pull them through.

    This happened at a time where women in society were still being put down by being put on a fragile pedestal.  A woman alone was vulnerable, no matter how strong she appeared to be.  The price was usually exorbitant if she succeeded and tragic if she failed.

    Susan instinctively understood what all that meant, and she was able to translate those feelings into those women's roles.  "My Foolish Heart" was a weeper, a story of a lonely girl in love with army pilot Dana Andrews who fails to return from a mission in World War II.  Pregnant, she seduces her best friend's fiancé into a marriage to legitimize the child's birth.  The marriage is a failure, and later, in a divorce proceeding, she decides to give up custody of the child rather than reveal the truth to keep from hurting her husband or her daughter.

    Susan received her second, well-deserved Academy Award nomination for her performance.  But there was no stopping Olivia de Haviliand from getting the Oscar for her portrayal of the plain spinster in "The Heiress," with Montgomery Clift and Ralph Richardson.

    Her third Oscar nomination for best actress was for her portrayal of singer Jane Froman in "With A Song In My Heart" (1952), a strong script about suffering and courage.  Froman was badly injured in a plane crash while entertaining the troops in World War II.  At the time, Susan was at the peak of her popularity; she was box-office champion and reigning star at 20th Century Fox. Still, the long-sought prize eluded her, as Shirley Booth captured the Oscar for her role in "Come Back Little Sheba" with Burt Lancaster.

    In 1951, Susan played what some critics still believe was her best performance as singer Lillian Roth in "I'll Cry Tomorrow," the story of a beautiful, talented woman whose early successes overwhelmed her.
She gradually turned more and more to alcohol for solace, then to sixteen years of brutal and ugly alcoholism before she was able to turn things around.  It was more than inspirational, it was a celebration of the triumph of the inner spirit over adversity, a form of a struggle that Susan understood so well.

    Susan herself needed to draw on her own inner strength during that time.  Just before she started rehearsing for "I'll Cry Tomorrow" she took an overdose of sleeping pills following a bitter courtroom battle with ex-husband Jess Barker over the custody of their twin sons.  Alerted by her mother, the police broke down the door and rushed her to the hospital.  It was close.  However, true to form, and with indomitable spirit, Susan recovered rapidly and went into the role of Lillian Roth.

    Later Lillian herself said that Susan really got into her character, so much so that after several hours of conversation, she did not know whether Susan was imitating her or she was emulating Susan.  "We're both so emotional about things, when we face each other, it is like looking in a mirror," she said.

    Jane Froman made almost the same observation, "Susan wanted to know everything about me, my feelings, my drives, what I liked, what I was afraid of."  What both women remembered most was that Susan would stare at them for the longest time whenever they were on the set, watching their movements, their behavior; it was total immersion into their being.

    Susan added another dimension to the Lillian Roth role.  MGM found out, to their surprise and delight, that she had a warm, rich, contralto voice, so good that she sang all the songs in the picture.

    Once again she was nominated for the Oscar for what all critics agreed was an outstanding performance. There was really only one competitor -- Anna Magnani in Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tattoo." The play's reputation and its New York awards, just as with "Come Back Little Sheba" a few years earlier, was too much for Susan to overcome.  By an incredible coincidence, Daniel Mann directed Susan in "I'll Cry Tomorrow" and Anna in "The Rose Tattoo" in that same year.

    However, her time came in 1958 when Walter Manger cast Susan in "I Want To Live," the story of Barbara Graham who was sent to the gas chamber at San Quentin, California for the murder of an eighty-year-old woman.  Barbara Uraham had a sordid past, from prostitution to forgery to robbery.  From all accounts, she was prosecuted by the District Attorney's office as well as by the press for what she was rather than for any substantial evidence that she did the killing.  Though she proclaimed her innocence to the end, she was executed on August 3, 1955.

    Susan prepared heavily for the role.  While it was unlike any she had done before -- it was the dark side of the character all the way -- Susan understood the "darkness of the soul."  The depth to which Susan was willing to go to penetrate the character of Barbara Graham became the subject of co-workers' conversation.  And it was a chilling performance, even more terrifying during the scene in the gas chamber when she was being put to death.  And yet, colleagues also pointed with amazement to her remarkable ability to break herself out of the mood of a scene and simply walk away, apparently unfazed by the experience.

    On April 6, 1959, against formidable competition from Elizabeth Taylor in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," Susan Hayward won the 1958 Academy Award for best actress.

    All in all, Susan made forty-three full length films before "I Want To Live," She would go on to make thirteen more, for a total of fifty-seven.  She never regained the heights to which she had risen before she got her Oscar.  But an inner goal was apparently reached; it was time to do other things, other pursuits.
She remarried to Floyd Eaton Chalkiey in 1957, a charming, gentlemanly Virginian, ex-FBI agent and entrepreneur.  They lived in Florida until his death in 1966.

    In 1973, Susan was diagnosed as having a brain tumor.  She fought her illness as she fought everything else in her life, with courage, energy, and tenacity. Her twin sons, Timothy and Gregory rallied around their mother and took turns helping her.  In 1974, she summoned up enough strength to be a presenter at the Academy Awards.  With almost superhuman effort, she walked out on the stage on the arm of Charton Heston and announced the winner for best actress, Glenda Jackson for "A Touch Of Class."  It was her last public appearance.  She died on March 14, 1975. at the age of fifty-six.

    Barbara Hershey, another actress of quality and substance{"Hannah And Her Sisters") said at the 1987 Cannes Festival, when she received the Palm d'Or Award for best actress in "Shy People," "I believe acting is half who you are and half what you do. You're only capable of portraying what you're capable of understanding. You can only play the character if you can play it somewhere inside of yourself."

    This, perhaps, is the most fitting description of Susan Hayward.