Does anyone have a real good understanding about how Rita Hayworth's career got started.

I've read where she was one of the TJ strippers who got discovered and went to Hollywood.

Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Dolores Cansino on October 17, 1918 at New York Nursery and Child's Hospital, in New York City. Her parents were Volga Hayworth of Irish and English descent and Eduardo Cansino, who was Spanish, from Seville, Spain. She had two younger brothers, Eduardo Jr. and Vernon. When Margarita was first born the Cansino family lived in a theatrical hotel near the Palace Theater where her father was appearing with his sister Elisa as "The Dancing Cansino's". Eduardo began teaching Margarita to dance from the time she learned to walk and she turned out to be wonderful at it. Her childhood was very different from that of the everyday little girl, she spent most of her time learning dances and practicing, but it served as a great training for her future career. Rita was very shy but she would come to life while dancing on stage whenever she was given the chance to dance for an audience, and later when her father made her a part of The Dancing Cansino's.

When Margarita was eight years old the Cansino's moved out west, near Hollywood, where Eduardo opened a dancing school on Sunset and Vine Streets and got a few jobs as choreographer in some movie musicals. The school did very well at first but as America sank deeper into The Great Depression his school began losing business and eventually closed (it later re-opened). So he started occasional appearances doing the prologues at the Carthay Circle Theater. Rita appeared in one these shows with her cousin, Gabriel Cansino. That night she impressed her father very much with her unique talent. In the early 30's Eduardo decided to go back to doing shows, but since his sister Elisa had moved back to Spain to raise her family he didn't have a partner. I've heard two different versions of how Margarita came to be Eduardo's dancing partner. One story says he was planning on dancing with the star pupil at his dancing school, a young girl named Margo. Margarita was very hurt by his decision- she wanted dance! When Eduardo realized this, he decided to make Rita his partner on stage. The other version of the story says that Eduardo chose Margarita to be his dancing partner and she simply went along with her father's decision. However it happened, they opened at The Foreign Club Cafe de Luxe in Tijuana, Mexico on Christmas Day in 1932.

Margarita and Eduardo, as "The Dancing Cansinos" did shows in Agua Caliente, Tijuana, and later on a gambling ship anchored past the Mexican border. They were headliners in places like The Foreign Club Cafe de Luxe, the Hotel Caliente and other places throughout the early 30's. Rita and Eduardo were the stars of these performances and from their dances and costumes most people assumed they were brother and sister, or even husband and wife, rather than father and daughter. These were busy times for Margarita, between four shows a day, and taking dancing lessons with her father she also had to fit in time to go to school. School obviously took a back seat to her new career but I'm sure sometimes she just wished she could be a normal kid, playing and going to school.

For a time she and Eduardo were appearing at The Caliente Club and it was here that while performing she caught the attention of the then vice-president of The Fox Film Corporation, Winfield Sheehan