If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth

Profound book. Profoundly sad. Profound investigation of unhappiness.

The thesis that runs through this book is how the physical, emotional, and incestuous abuse that Hayworth's father inflicted in her teen years stamped the rest of her life.

Rita Hayworth was naturally shy and introverted, but was forced to dance from the age of 12 to earn money for her family. She traveled on the road with her father to perform alluring Spanish dances with him as a partner. To make matters worse, she was expected to take care of her father's sexual needs in her mother's absence.

The rest of her life was a quest for love, safety–to be taken care of. She sought out controlling, often abusive men, yet eventually would rebel against them by cutting them out of her life. She felt that she had to be a highly sexualized love goddess onscreen, while constantly wanting to escape Hollywood.

There was no solace for her in the end, because she developed Alzheimer's disease at a relatively young age.

(I listened to the audio version of this book.)