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Struggles with Columbia Pictures

Hayworth had a strained relationship with Columbia Pictures for many years. In 1943, she was suspended without pay for nine weeks because she refused to appear in Once Upon a Time. During this period in Hollywood, contract players could not choose their films; they were on salary rather than receiving a fixed amount per picture.

In 1947, Hayworth's new contract with Columbia provided a salary of $250,000 plus 50% of films' profits. In 1951, Columbia alleged it had $800,000 invested in properties for her, including the film that she had walked out on that year. Hayworth left Hollywood to marry Prince Aly Khan and was suspended for failing to report to work on the film Affair in Trinidad. In 1952, Hayworth refused to report for work because she objected to the script. She said,

I was in Switzerland when they sent me the script for Affair in Trinidad and I threw it across the room. But I did the picture, and Pal Joey, too. I came back to Columbia because I wanted to work and first, see, I had to finish that goddamn contract, which is how Harry Cohn owned me!"

In 1955, she sued Columbia Pictures to be released from her contract, but asked for her $150,000 salary, alleging that the filming failed to start on Joseph and His Brethren (1961) when agreed. The film was later filmed in 1961 by a foreign company as The Story of Joseph and His Brethren (film). Cohn had a reputation as a taskmaster, but he had his own criticisms of Hayworth. He had invested heavily in her before she began an affair with the married Aly Khan, and it could have caused a backlash against her career and Columbia's success. For instance, an article in the British periodical The People called for a boycott of Hayworth's films:

Hollywood must be told its already tarnished reputation will sink to rock bottom if it restores this reckless woman to a place among its stars."

Cohn expressed his frustration in a 1957 interview with Time magazine:

Hayworth might be worth ten million dollars today easily! She owned 25% of the profits with her own company and had hit after hit and she had to get married and had to get out of the business and took a suspension because she fell in love again! In five years, at two pictures a year, at 25%! Think of what she could have made! But she didn't make pictures! She took two or three suspensions! She got mixed up with different characters! Unpredictable!"

Years after her film career had ended and long after Cohn had died, Hayworth still resented her treatment by both him and Columbia. She spoke bluntly in a 1968 interview:

I used to have to punch a time clock at Columbia. Every day of my life. That's what it was like. I was under exclusive contract, like they owned me... I think he had my dressing room bugged... He was very possessive of me as a person, he didn't want me to go out with anybody, have any friends. No one can live that way. So I fought him... You want to know what I think of Harry Cohn? He was a monster.

Later on, in 1972 she said :

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."

Hayworth resented the fact that the studio had failed to train her to sing or even to encourage her to learn how to sing. Although she appeared to sing in many of her films, she was usually dubbed. Because the public did not know her secret, she was embarrassed to be asked to sing by troops at USO shows.

I wanted to study singing", Hayworth complained, "but Harry Cohn kept saying, 'Who needs it?' and the studio wouldn't pay for it. They had me so intimidated that I couldn't have done it anyway. They always said, 'Oh, no, we can't let you do it. There's no time for that; it has to be done right now!' I was under contract, and that was it."