Leland Hayward - Marriages and Family

Marriages and Family

Hayward was married five times.

In 1921 he married the debutante Lola Gibbs. They divorced one year later, remarried and divorced again in 1934.

Hayward married stage and screen actress Margaret Sullavan, formerly married to Henry Fonda, in 1936. They had three children: Brooke, born July 5, 1937, who was married to actor Dennis Hopper from 1961–69; Bridget (1939–1960), who committed suicide by overdose in October 1960, less than a year after her mother's death by overdose; and William, born 1941, who committed suicide March 20, 2008, by shooting himself in the heart. The family's dysfunctional life had been memorialized in daughter Brooke's memoir, Haywire. In Haywire, Brooke writes of a conversation she had with William in which he said if he ever committed suicide, he would do so by shooting himself in the heart.

Hayward's grandchildren include Marin Hopper, Brooke Hayward's daughter by actor/director Dennis Hopper, and William and Jeffrey Thomas, by Brooke Hayward's first marriage to writer Michael Thomas. Leland William Hayward and Bridget Pamela Hayward, William Hayward's children from marriage to Rita Marie Rosate.

His great-grandchildren include Anna and Cooper Thomas, and Violet Hayward Goldstone.

In 1938, Hayward met Slim Hawks, then wife of film director Howard Hawks. Hayward's marriage to Sullavan came to an end in 1946, and he married Slim Hawks three years later. Their marriage became strained after Slim had a one-night stand with Frank Sinatra and a longer affair with Peter Viertel.

In 1958 Hayward was introduced to Pamela Churchill, the mistress of Elie de Rothschild. He proposed to her the following year. On May 4, 1960, hours after his divorce from Hawks was final, Hayward married Pamela Churchill in Carson City, Nevada.