Marketing the Post-War Goddess: Rita Hayworth and Down to Earth (1947)

Abstract

This chapter examines the etymology of the 1940s’ figure of the ‘love goddess’ and the construction of this discourse in American fan magazines and trade press. Focusing on major musical star, Rita Hayworth, and her vehicle Down to Earth (Alexander Hall, 1947), the chapter begins with a discussion of contemporary critical conceptions of star divinisation including Winthrop Sargeant’s well-known 1947 Life magazine feature on Hayworth, ‘The Cult of the Love Goddesses in America’, and writing by Parker Tyler and screenwriter Edmund Hartmann. It then examines the significance of the ‘love goddess’ for wartime and post-war audiences. Finally, the chapter looks at how Hayworth’s contemporary image was deployed within Columbia’s marketing campaign for a film that was in part—with Hayworth playing the Greek goddess Terpsichore—about the divinisation of stars. As the chapter demonstrates, star divinisation is a highly formulaic industrial process.