Jane Russell

**American Patriot** · March 1st, 2011, 14:54

Died at age 89.

Jane Russell, Sex Symbol, Christian, Conservative, Dies At 89

by David Badash on March 1, 2011
in Celebrities,News

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American iconic actress Jane Russell died yesterday of respiratory failure at the age of 89. Star of twenty-nine movies and television series, she was best-known for her favorite role as Dorothy Shaw in 1953′s “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” which she co-starred with Marilyn Monroe. Russell was known as a “sex symbol” at a time when the term was a great compliment.
The New York Times writes,“[a]fter a botched abortion before her marriage, Ms. Russell was unable to have children. She later became an outspoken opponent of abortion and an advocate of adoption, founding the World Adoption International Fund in the 1950s.”
The Times adds that Russell “turned to conservative politics in her later years. ‘These days I’m a teetotal, mean-spirited, right-wing, narrow-minded, conservative Christian bigot, but not a racist,’ she told an Australian newspaper, The Daily Mail, in 2003. Bigotry, she added, ‘just means you don’t have an open mind.’”
“Ms. Russell was very public about her religious convictions. She organized Bible study groups in Hollywood and wrote about having experienced speaking in tongues. In her memoir, “My Path and My Detours” (1985), she described the strength she drew from Christianity.”
Via Wikipedia:
“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.”
“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”. 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).”
The Guardian has a nice piece up: “Jane Russell: a life in clips,” showing some of her performances.

**American Patriot** · March 1st, 2011, 14:55

I used to watch her commercials.

/chuckles

**American Patriot** · March 1st, 2011, 14:59

Jane Russell, 1921-2011

The "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" star was 89.
Posted 03/01/2011 945 AM by Matt Singer

Jane Russell, 1921-2011
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Photo: "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," 20th Century Fox, 1953.

Not many actresses had enough raw charisma to share the screen with Marilyn Monroe without getting upstaged, but Jane Russell could. Russell, who died Monday at the age of 89 of respiratory-related illness, was a rare Hollywood commodity: an actress who combined raw sexual magnetism with a razor-sharp wit. She was beautiful and sexy and smart and funny, the total package. And man, what a package.

Russell gave the world two gifts for which we will be forever grateful: the musical comedy "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" with Monroe, and a figure so voluptuous it inspired filmmaker, aviator, and voluptuousness hobbyist Howard Hughes to invent one of the first underwire brassieres. As the legend goes, Russell served as Hughes' bra muse during production of his film "The Outlaw" in 1941. The 19-year-old actress had been plucked from obscurity working in a doctor's office when Hughes cast her for her curvaceous body and smoldering onscreen presence. Here, according to NNDB.com, is what happened next:

"Hughes had his engineers design a seamless underwire brassiere, a breakthrough in bra science to lift Russell's 38-D breasts, leaving no visible support lines to interrupt the under-blouse contour of her bosom. It was the first practical "lift and separate" push-up bra, but Russell later said she did not wear the uncomfortable contraption during filming. Instead she wore her own bras, adding a layer of tissue paper over the cups to eliminate unsightly support lines. Hughes, despite directing the picture himself, never knew the difference."

The publicity photos of Russell for "The Outlaw" -- reclining with a gun in a dress that looked like it was about to fall off her frame completely -- became one of the most iconic images of sexuality of the 1940s. The stills' blend of sex and violence continues to inspire movie marketers to this day.

Anyone whose obituary includes the phrase "breakthrough in bra science" has already lived a great and important life. But Russell wasn't done. In 1953, she made Howard Hawks' "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," a hilarious comedy about two man-crazed showgirls living it up on a cruise to Paris. Almost sixty years later, I'm not sure Hollywood has yet to make a funnier and sexier movie from a woman's perspective.

The film was completely ahead of its time, feminist before feminism even existed, in its depiction of its two leads as capable, independent, women in complete control of their lives and their powerful sexuality.

"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is most famous for Monroe's climactic musical number "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend," and rightfully so, but Russell gives an unforgettable performance too. She plays Dorothy Shaw to Monroe's Lorelei Lee, chaperone for Lorelei's transatlantic voyage to marry her rich fiance Mr. Esmond (Tommy Noonan).

Esmond's father disapproves of the marriage and so the couple travel separately to Paris for their nuptials. If they have any hope of convincing Esmond Sr. of their seriousness, there can't be any funny business on the boat. Hence it's Russell's job to keep any eye on things, an arrangement which suits her well. "The chaperone's job is to see that nobody else has any fun," she tells Esmond on the docks. "Nobody chaperone's the chaperone."

Dorothy Shaw has to be one of the coolest characters in all of the movies, a one-liner factory built like a brick house. Her sexuality is both powerful and empowering. Her eyes widen when she sees the entire U.S. Olympic team on their boat, and she later shares a lusty musical number with them in their skin-colored swim trunks, "Ain't There Anyone Here For Love?," which puts a lie to the theory that all Hollywood films are designed solely for the pleasure of the male gaze.

Russell's promiscuous ways -- in an age when married couples still slept in separate beds onscreen, Dorothy openly admits to sleeping with a guy on their first date -- aren't portrayed as sleazy or slutty. Dorothy is simply smart, self-aware, and self-reliant. None of the men in this movie, even the one she ultimately chooses to be with, seem good enough for her -- Hawks, taking a page of the Hitchcock playbook, cast duds as his male leads so that the women would be even more appealling. It worked: though "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" stars two of the most beautiful women to ever appear in the movies, it's not about fantasizing about them; it's about fantasizing about being them.

Though Russell worked steadily through the 1940s and 50s, including notable films with Bob Hope ("Son of Paleface") and Robert Mitchum ("Macao"), "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" was her unrepeatable apex. The New York Times story about her death says that in her later years she became a bra spokesman, struggled with alcoholism and, maybe most surprisingly, dabbled in conservative politics. There was nothing conservative about the young Russell, who pushed boundaries, broke taboos, and offered one of the most comprehensive arguments in history why gentlemen shouldn't prefer blondes.