October 17
Margarita Carmen Cansino's Birthday
 

 

Margarita Carmen Cansino was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Spanish flamenco dancer Eduardo Cansino (Sr.) and English/Irish-American Ziegfeld girl Volga Hayworth. She was on stage by the age of six as a member of her family's Spanish troupe. Eduardo eventually pared the act down to a duo with Margarita and  performing in nightclubs in California and the Foreign Club in Tijuana, Mexico. At age sixteen, she attracted the attention of film producers and was signed by Fox Studios in 1935. Margarita signed with Columbia Pictures in 1937 who changed her name to Rita Hayworth and within a few year's became that studio's biggest star. Her The "love goddess" image was cemented with Bob Landry's 1941 Life magazine photograph of her (kneeling on her own bed in a silk and lace nightgown), which caused a sensation and became (at over five million copies) one of the most requested wartime pinups

Rita became an important musical star, primarily because  of her dancing talent and was partnered with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.. However, her voice was always dubbed for her singing roles  The role that eventually defined her career and indirectly harmed her marriages was Gilda (1946) in which Hayworth  performed a legendary one-glove striptease — made her ia cultural icon as the ultimate femme fatale. Naturally shy and reclusive, Rita was the antithesis of the characters she played. She once complained, "Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me."

Rita left her film career in 1948 to marry Prince Aly Khan, the son of the Aga Khan, the leader of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam.  After the marriage collapsed in 1951, Rita returned to America with great fanfare to film a string of hit films. About 1960, Rita suffered from extremely early onset of Alzheimer's disease, which was not diagnosed until 1980. She continued to act in films until the early 1970s.  One of the major fund raisers for the Alzheimer's Association is the annual Rita Hayworth Gala, which is held in New York City and Chicago. Hayworth's daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, has been the hostess for these events, which since 1985 have raised more than $42 million for the Association.

So let's celebrate Rita's birthday with her most popular film and a Gilda appetizer. Gilda means lollipop in Spanish, and the classic Gilda tapas is a simple assembly of a guindilla (Spanish chile pepper), an anchovy and an olive.
 

Gildas

 

Ingredients
 
30 toothpicks
10 guindilla
10 anchovies
 

10 olives (with no pit)
virgin olive oil

 
Instructions
 
  1. Take a toothpick and insert one olive.
  2. Bend the anchovy until both ends touch and insert the toothpick in the middle. .
  3. Take a toothpick. and insert one guindilla .
  4. Place all of them on a plate and pour a little olive oil over them and serve.

© 2011 Gordon Nary and Tyler Stokes