“‘I can’t get over what she did to you on the telephone’, I said. ‘She always seem so shy and helpless’.
‘She really has got her claws into you, hasn’t she?’
I had to smile. ‘She never had much choice.’
‘She had a choice,’ Dorothy said emphatically. Rita gets what she wants. I remember the first time I watched her work. It was on Gilda. During rehearsals, she spoke so low it was hard to hear her.’
‘She always speaks softly.’
‘Not on the first take. She was clear and letter-perfect. But then the director decided he wanted something different. Well, she was never that clear or letter-perfect again. So after ten more takes, the director told her to try it again the way she did it the first time. She did, and they printed it, and that was the way it was in the finished picture.’
It made me shake my head in admiration. ‘Hard to believe.’
‘I know,’ Dorothy said. ‘I’ve stood in for her, and I’ve worked on sets with her. The voice may be soft, but there’s steel unerneath.’”
- James Hill, Rita Hayworth: A memoir
