Jane Russell

Jane Russell

in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Born	Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell

June 21, 1921

Bemidji, Minnesota, U.S.
Died	February 28, 2011 (aged 89)

Santa Maria, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, model
Years active	1943–1986
Spouse	Bob Waterfield

(m. 1943–1967)

Roger Barrett

(m. 1968–1968)

John Calvin Peoples

(m. 1974–1999)

Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (June 21, 1921 – February 28, 2011) was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s.

The oldest of five children, Russell moved from the Midwest to California, where she had her first film role in 1943 with The Outlaw. In 1947, Russell delved into music before returning to films. After starring in multiple films in the 1950s, Russell again returned to music while completing several other films in the 1960s. She starred in over 20 films throughout her career.

Russell married three times and adopted several children, and in 1955, founded the World Adoption International Fund. For her achievements in film, she received several accolades including having her hand and foot prints immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She died at her home in Santa Maria, California of a respiratory-related illness on February 28, 2011.

Early life

Born in Bemidji, Minnesota in 1921, Russell was the eldest child and only daughter of the five children of Roy William Russell (January 5, 1890 – July 18, 1937) and Geraldine Jacobi (January 2, 1891 – December 26, 1986).

Her parents were both born in North Dakota. Three of her grandparents were born in Canada, while her paternal grandmother was born in Germany. Her parents married in 1917. Her father was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and her mother was a former actress with a road troupe. Her parents spent the early years of their marriage in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. For her birth her mother temporarily moved back to the U.S. to ensure she was born a U.S. citizen.[original research?] Later the family moved to the San Fernando Valley of Southern California. They lived in Burbank in 1930 and her father worked as an office manager at a soap manufacturing plant.[citation needed]

Russell's mother arranged for her to take piano lessons. In addition to music, she was interested in drama and participated in stage productions at Van Nuys High School. Her early ambition was to be a designer of some kind, until the death of her father at forty-six, when she decided to work as a receptionist after graduation. She also modeled for photographers and, at the urging of her mother, studied drama and acting with Max Reinhardt's Theatrical Workshop and with famed Russian actress Maria Ouspenskaya.

Jane Russell with Bob Hope in 1944.

Career

The Outlaw

In 1940, Russell was signed to a seven-year contract by film mogul Howard Hughes and made her motion picture debut in The Outlaw (1943), a story about Billy the Kid that went to great lengths to showcase her voluptuous figure. Although the movie was completed in 1941, it was released for a limited showing two years later. There were problems with the censorship of the production code over the way her ample cleavage was displayed. When the movie was finally passed, it had a general release in 1946. During that time, she was kept busy doing publicity and became known nationally. Contrary to countless incorrect reports in the media since the release of The Outlaw, Russell did not wear the specially designed underwire bra (the first of its kind) that Howard Hughes constructed for the film. According to Jane's 1988 autobiography, she was given the bra, decided it had a mediocre fit, and wore her own bra on the film set with the straps pulled down.

With measurements of 38D-24-36 and standing 5'7" she was more statuesque than most of her contemporaries. Aside from thousands of quips from radio comedians, including Bob Hope, who once introduced her as "the two and only Jane Russell" and "Culture is the ability to describe Jane Russell without moving your hands", the photo of her on a haystack was a popular pin-up with servicemen during World War II. She was not in another movie until 1946, when she played Joan Kenwood in Young Widow for RKO.

Early musical ventures

In 1947, Russell attempted to launch a musical career. She sang with the Kay Kyser Orchestra on radio and recorded two singles with his band, "As Long As I Live" and "Boin-n-n-ng!" She also cut a 78 rpm album that year for Columbia Records, Let's Put Out the Lights, which included eight torch ballads and cover art that included a diaphanous gown that for once put the focus more on her legs than on her breasts. In a 2009 interview for the liner notes to another CD, Fine and Dandy, Russell denounced the Columbia album as "horrible and boring to listen to." It was reissued on CD in 2002, in a package that also included the Kyser singles and two songs she recorded for Columbia in 1949 that had gone unreleased at the time. In 1950, she recorded a single, "Kisses and Tears," with Frank Sinatra and The Modernaires for Columbia.

Jane Russell as Dorothy Shaw in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

Motion-picture stardom

She performed in an assortment of movie roles, which included Calamity Jane, opposite Bob Hope in The Paleface (1948) on loan out to Paramount, and Mike "the Torch" Delroy opposite Hope in another western comedy, Son of Paleface (1952), again at Paramount. Russell played Dorothy Shaw in the hit film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) opposite Marilyn Monroe for 20th Century Fox.

The 1950s

She appeared in two movies opposite Robert Mitchum, His Kind of Woman (1951) and Macao (1952). Other co-stars include Frank Sinatra and Groucho Marx in the comedy Double Dynamite (1951); Victor Mature, Vincent Price and Hoagy Carmichael in The Las Vegas Story (1952); Jeff Chandler in Foxfire (1955); and Clark Gable and Robert Ryan in The Tall Men (1955).

In Howard Hughes' RKO production The French Line (1954), the movie's penultimate moment showed Russell in a form-fitting one-piece bathing suit with strategic cut outs, performing a then-provocative musical number titled "Lookin' for Trouble." In her autobiography, Russell said that the revealing outfit was an alternative to Hughes' original suggestion of a bikini, a very racy choice for a movie costume in 1954. Russell said that she initially wore the bikini in front of her "horrified" movie crew while "feeling very naked."

In 1955, Russell and her first husband, former Los Angeles Rams quarterback Bob Waterfield, formed Russ-Field Productions. They produced Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), The King and Four Queens (1956) starring Clark Gable and Eleanor Parker, Run for the Sun (1956) and The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957).[citation needed] The last of these was a box-office failure.

She starred in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes alongside Jeanne Crain, and in The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956). After making The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957), which failed at the box-office, she did not appear on the silver screen again for seven years.

Marilyn Monroe and Russell putting signatures, hand and foot prints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater, 1953

Return to music

On the musical front, Russell formed a gospel group with Connie Haines, former vocalist in the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey orchestras, and Beryl Davis, a British emigrant who had moved to the U.S. after success entertaining American troops stationed in England during World War II. With Della Russell as a fourth voice and backed by an orchestra conducted by Lyn Murray, their Coral single "Do Lord" reached number 27 on the Billboard singles chart in May 1954. Russell, Haines and Davis followed up with an LP for Capitol Records, The Magic of Believing. According to the liner notes on this album, the group started when the women met at a church social. Later, another Hollywood bombshell, Rhonda Fleming, joined them for more gospel recordings. A collection of some of Russell's gospel and secular recordings was issued on CD in England in 2005, and the Capitol LP was issued on CD in 2008, in a package that also included more secular recordings, including Russell's spoken word performances of Hollywood Riding Hood and Hollywood Cinderella backed by a jazz group that featured Terry Gibbs and Tony Scott.

In October 1957, she debuted in a successful solo nightclub act at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. She also fulfilled later engagements in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America and Europe. A self-titled solo LP was issued on MGM Records in 1959. It was reissued on CD in 2009 under the title Fine and Dandy, and the CD included some demo and soundtrack recordings as well. "I finally got to make a record the way I wanted to make it," she said of the MGM album in the liner notes to the CD reissue. In 1961, she debuted with a tour of Janus in New England. In the fall of 1961, she performed in Skylark at the Drury Lane Theatre, Chicago. In November 1962, she performed in Bells Are Ringing at the Westchester Town House in Yonkers, New York.

Silver-screen decline

Her next movie appearance came in Fate Is the Hunter (1964), in which she was seen as herself performing for the USO in a flashback sequence. She made only four more movies after that, playing character parts in the final two.

Other venues

In 1971, she starred in the musical drama Company, making her debut on Broadway in the role of Joanne, succeeding Elaine Stritch. Russell performed the role of Joanne for almost six months. Also in the 1970s, she started appearing in television commercials as a spokeswoman for Playtex "'Cross-Your-Heart Bras' for us full-figured gals," featuring the "18-Hour Bra," still one of International Playtex's best-known products even as of early March of 2011. She wrote an autobiography in 1985, Jane Russell: My Path and My Detours. In 1989, she received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award.

Russell's hand and foot prints are immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6850 Hollywood Boulevard.

Russell was voted one of the 40 Most Iconic Movie Goddesses of all time in 2009 by Glamour (UK edition).

Fictional portrayals

Russell was portrayed by Renee Henderson in the 2001 CBS mini-series Blonde, based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates and portrayed leaving her imprints at Grauman's along with Marilyn Monroe in the HBO film Norma Jean & Marilyn starring Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino.

Personal life

Russell in 2008

Russell had three husbands: Bob Waterfield, a UCLA All American, Cleveland Rams and Los Angeles Rams quarterback, Los Angeles Rams head coach, and Pro Football Hall of Fame member (married on April 24, 1943, then divorced in July 1968); actor Roger Barrett, (married on August 25, 1968 through his death on November 18, 1968); and the real-estate broker John Calvin Peoples (married January 31, 1974 through his death on April 9, 1999). Russell and Peoples lived in Sedona, Arizona for a few years, but spent the majority of their married life residing in Montecito, California. In February 1952, she and Waterfield adopted a baby girl, Tracy. In December 1952, they adopted a fifteen-month-old boy, Thomas, and in 1956 she and Waterfield adopted a nine-month-old boy, Robert John. Due to early back street abortions,  Russell herself was unable to have children and, in 1955, she founded World Adoption International Fund (WAIF), an organization to place children with adoptive families that pioneered adoptions from foreign countries by Americans. 

At the height of her career, Russell started the "Hollywood Christian Group", a weekly Bible study at her home which was arranged for Christians in the film industry.Russell appeared occasionally on the Praise The Lord program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, a Christian television channel based in Costa Mesa, California. Russell was at times a prominent Republican Party member who attended Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration along with other notables from Hollywood such as Lou Costello, Dick Powell, June Allyson, Anita Louise and Louella Parsons. She has described her struggles with alcoholism, commenting in her later life ""These days I am a teetotal, mean-spirited, right-wing, narrow-minded, conservative Christian bigot, but not a racist." 

Russell resided in Santa Maria Valley along the Central Coast of California. She died at her home in Santa Maria, California of a respiratory-related illness on February 28, 2011.

Filmography

Features

The Outlaw (1943)

Young Widow (1946)

The Paleface (1948)

His Kind of Woman (1951)

Double Dynamite (1951)

The Las Vegas Story (1952)

Macao (1952)

Son of Paleface (1952)

Montana Belle (1952)

Road to Bali (1952) (Cameo)

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

The French Line (1954)

Underwater! (1955)

Foxfire (1955)

The Tall Men (1955)

Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955)

Hot Blood (1956)

The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956)

The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)

Fate Is the Hunter (1964)

Johnny Reno (1966)

Waco (1966)

The Born Losers (1967)

Darker Than Amber (1970)

Hollywood on Fire (2007) (documentary)

Short Subjects

Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Rodeo (1949)

Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Goes to Bat (1950)

Screen Snapshots: Playtime in Hollywood (1956)

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