 When you're a movie star you can't simply have a bad day. 
When you're a celebrity, even in professional decline or retirement, you can always make news with a public misstep. Such was the case with Rita Hayworth when she was helped from a TWA flight after it landed in London today in 1976. Hayworth had caused a disruption by directing an angry outburst at a flight attendant. The press was on hand at the airport, so Hayworth was photographed from arrival terminal to limousine looking as tired as if she'd walked instead of flown to London.
It was bad day for Hayworth, but it was only the latest in a long run of them. She had been deeply affected by both her brothers dying within a week in March 1974, had been drinking heavily since then, and in fact was allegedly intoxicated on the flight. When news of the disturbance hit the papers she took a public relations beating and, of course, back then the press wasn't circumspect about attacking a woman's looks.
It wasn't until several years later that Hayworth was diagnosed with the still largely unknown ailment Alzheimer's disease, which helped explain her increasingly erratic behavior. Aging is difficult, there's little doubt. Aging as a sex symbol must be incredibly hard. Some would say growing old in public is back payment for fame, fortune, and undeserved adoration, and that may be so, but to us it seems like a mighty high price. We have a few more photos below.
  
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping
Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice. 2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies
American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times. 1963—Profumo Denies Affair
In England, the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denies any impropriety with showgirl Christine Keeler and threatens to sue anyone repeating the allegations. The accusations involve not just infidelity, but the possibility acquaintances of Keeler might be trying to ply Profumo for nuclear secrets. In June, Profumo finally resigns from the government after confessing his sexual involvement with Keeler and admitting he lied to parliament. 1978—Karl Wallenda Falls to His Death
World famous German daredevil and high-wire walker Karl Wallenda, founder of the acrobatic troupe The Flying Wallendas, falls to his death attempting to walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda is seventy-three years old at the time, but it is a 30 mph wind, rather than age, that is generally blamed for sending him from the wire. 2006—Swedish Spy Stig Wennerstrom Dies
Swedish air force colonel Stig Wennerström, who had been convicted in the 1970s of passing Swedish, U.S. and NATO secrets to the Soviet Union over the course of fifteen years, dies in an old age home at the age of ninety-nine. The Wennerström affair, as some called it, was at the time one of the biggest scandals of the Cold War. |
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