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Taylor Jenkins Reid is the writer behind many successes, such as Daisy Jones & The Six and Carrie Soto is Back, but especially The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. She writes about not only stories of fictional famous people, luxury and love, but also addiction, family issues, prejudice, racism and domestic violence, giving the behind scenes of fame.
The main character Evelyn Hugo is an actress from the Golden Age of Hollywood, and when she is in her late 70’s decides to write her biography, in which the reader discovers who she is, what happened in her life and the choices she made. Since the book was published, it has been made comparisons with the character’s life and some actresses like Elizabeth Taylor.
In the book, Evelyn has a Cuban background and her real name is Evelyn Herrera. She lived in Hell’s Kitchen (NY) with her parents, and her mother died when she was 11, and at 14 years old she married a neighbor who was moving to Los Angeles. Her mother wanted to be an actress and that passed to Evelyn. Making a connection with Marilyn Monroe, she dyed her hair blonde to be more appealing for magazines and was considered a sex symbol at her time. All that after having a difficult childhood, getting married when she was 16 also with a neighbor, and starting to work as a model and, later, as an actress.
At the beginning of Evelyn’s acting career, she was always casted as an “exotic character” because of her latino heritage. In order to get bigger roles, she dyed her hair blonde, got rid of the latin last name, trained to tell about a more appealing backstory, and became the one and only Evelyn Hugo. The same thing happened with Rita Hayworth, she was born Margarita Carmen Cansion, in Brooklyn (NY), and started her career in minor roles under the name Rita Cansino, but the studio’s executive encouraged her to change her name and dye her hair red.
Back in that time, there was a choice forced to be made: Hugo could be successful as a protagonist, or keep her identity. As Taylor Jenkins Reid said in an interview to Pop Sugar, “you weren’t necessarily going to be a mainstream leading lady unless you fit a very narrow understanding of beauty and identity.”
The “seven husbands” are a reference to Elizabeth Taylor, who had also seven husbands (but eight marriages, tying the knot with Richard Burton twice). In her career, she had affairs with co-stars, and, as talented she was, her personal life was just as chaotic. The author said that Elizabeth and Evelyn had a thing or two in common, but evidently it was a true inspiration.
In her life and career, Evelyn Hugo had scandals, got big roles – the first one being Jo March, in Little Women -, became a sex symbol, and, at the end, revealed all her secrets to a journalist, to be turned into a published biography. Ava Gardner is the one who inspired all this. She narrated her life to Peter Evans, a ghost writer, wanting to release a biography, rumors said that the publication was held back because of Frank Sinatra (her former spouse), but was published after Ava and Peter passed.
Evelyn’s life has parallels with other artists like Lana Turner, who had seven husbands as well and was really good friends with Ava Gardner. Such as Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe, a cinema producer named Harry also boosted her career. In the book, it was Harry Cameron, and, in real life, Harry Cohn, both suggested the change of name and hair of the actresses.
Rita Hayworth had abusive contracts and many problems in her career with not being able to choose the movies she wanted to be in, just like Hugo. In different interviews late in her life, she talked about the difficulties faced, especially with the Cohn. In 1972, she said to Copley News Service’s Nancy Anderson: “Harry Cohn thought of me as one of the people he could exploit, and make a lot of money…And I did make a lot of money for him, but not much for me.”
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo brings a closer perspective of fame in Hollywood between the 20’s and 60’s, the “Golden Age”, one that gave us many icons, but looking at their lives, we can see how difficult it was to be part of the industry. Everything was planned and strings were pulled to make them famous, and, especially, to keep the fame.
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The article above was edited by Giulia Howard.
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