Stardates: Born October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, N.Y.; died 1987.
Star Sign: Libra
Star Qualities: Flowing red hair, delicious smile, spectacular dancing skills.
Star Definition: "Delightful to work with. One of the top feminine stars." - Fred Astaire
Galaxy Of Characters: Sheila Winthrop in You'll Never Get Rich (1941), Gilda Mundson Farrell in Gilda (1946), Terpsichore/Kitty Pendleton in Down to Earth (1947), Chris Emery in Affair in Trinidad (1952).

No writer of fiction - be it Somerset Maugham, Ray Bradbury or Danielle Steele - could have conjured up a life as full of glamour, drama and pathos as the one lived by Rita Hayworth, the beautiful woman who graces our "Now Playing" cover this month. Just look at that face - no one was ever loved by a camera more. And few started earlier or worked harder. By the age of 13, she was dancing professionally in Tijuana nightclubs. By age 27, she had made 38 films and, with No. 39 - the steamy 1946 film noir classic Gilda - she became not only an icon but part of the defining culture of the decade. (A pin-up picture of Rita sitting on a bed, in a negligee, was pasted on the side of the first atomic bomb dropped on Bikini; it was a testament to her popularity but both embarrassed and appalled her.)

In the 1940s, letters reached her with remarkable speed when addressed to, simply, "The Love Goddess, Hollywood, California." No one of her time inspired more gossip or headlines, especially when she married Orson Welles at the height of his "genius" and, later, when she became Princess Rita, the wife of European playboy Aly Khan, who was the son of the spiritual leader of millions of Moslems. She was the most famous redhead of her era, despite the fact her natural hair color was dark. About her hair: When her soon-to-be-ex-husband Mr. Welles chopped off Rita's famous red, flowing locks and turned her, momentarily, into a platinum blonde for their film The Lady from Shanghai, it caused such a furor that Welles later said "The public became as angry with me over Rita's hair as the Hearst family had been about Citizen Kane."

The life of Rita Hayworth is the stuff of which legends are born - legends and great documentaries. We invite you to join us for Rita, a TCM original on Rita's remarkable career and life, which sadly went into a tailspin as age curtailed her acting opportunities, as more husbands made entrances and exits (she was married and divorced five times), as the headlines became tawdrier and, finally, as Alzheimer's took its toll. (She died in 1987 at the age of 68; she had been living in New York under the care of her daughter Princess Yasmin Aga Khan in an apartment Yasmin had decorated for Rita in an exact replica of her mother's former Beverly Hills home.)

In addition to the documentary, we'll also be showing some of Rita Hayworth's most famous films: Gilda (1946), The Loves of Carmen (1948), Affair in Trinidad (1952) - all of which paired her with frequence co-star Glenn Ford; and 1941's You'll Never Get Rich, in which she danced opposite Fred Astaire just before her superstar days were beginning. Movie-watching doesn't get any better than this.

by Robert Osborne

* Films in Bold Type air on TCM