"Well, we can finally relax," commented a famous Hollywood columnist immediately after a shiny, new Oscar® was placed in the hands of Susan Hayward on April 6, 1959. "Suzie finally got what she's been fighting for with a clinched fist for the past 20 years."

It had indeed been a determined journey to that Academy Award® podium for our Star of the Month, the former Edythe Marrener of Erasmas Hall High School in Brooklyn who became world famous as the feisty, red-headed Susan Hayward of Beverly Hills, California, as she progressed, sometimes at a much slower pace than she'd hoped for, going from testing to play Scarlett O'Hara (someone else got the job) to B-exploitation films to colorless window-dressing parts and finally to noteworthy game changers which started with 1946's Canyon Passage, a film independently and expensively produced by the legendary Walter Wanger (whose past films included Garbo's Queen Christina, Stagecoach and Scarlet Street).

The timing was perfect: she was the veteran of 18 films and seasoned from eight years of toiling on sound stages in supporting roles amongst the likes of such pros as Ingrid Bergman, John Wayne and Loretta Young. Wanger, impressed by her talent, determination and no-nonsense ambition, saw in Hayward a young Bette Davis ready to blossom but with no career plan or team to help make that happen. He immediately stepped in, bought the remainder of a contract she had with the basically uninterested Paramount studio and then guided her into the big league career which carefully and immediately followed, seeing to it that she was in a steady mix of audience pleasing films as well as dramas which brought her Academy Award® nominations (1947's Smash-up: the Story of a Woman, 1949's My Foolish Heart). But the big coup came in 1950: he sold her contract to 20th Century-Fox where she made one blockbuster after another and became that studios most important female star at the box-office since the Fox hey-day of Betty Grable.

The only thing that still eluded Hayward was that Oscar® she wanted so badly, proof she was an actress and She Had Made It, "Top of the World, Ma." Meanwhile, Wanger had hit a disasterous roadblock in his career, his fortunes drastically changed after he'd served a short prison term for a messy incident in 1951. In jail, he became interested in a real-life California case in which a woman had been put to death in the electric chair despite some evidence she wasn't guilty of the crime for which she was charged. But because of serving prison time, Wanger couldn't find anyone in Hollywood willing to finance any Wanger project. But during a phone call one day to Susan H., he said he'd like to send her a script that might interest her. Before saying more, she said, "Walter, I'll do it." Her quick reply stunned him. "But don't you first want to read the script?" he said. "I haven't even mentioned what it's about." Said Hayward, "Walter, with all you've done for me, I wouldn't question anything you ever suggested I do." End of conversation.

Yes, she made the movie (1958's I Want to Live!) and, ironically--but maybe not--that's the film which finally put that elusive golden boy statuette in her hands.

by Robert Osborne