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Jane Russell: Movies
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Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was born at the summer home of her maternal grandparents in Bemidji, MN, on June 21, 1921. She was the first of five children and the only girl born to Roy William Russell, who soon became an office manager for the Jergens soap company, and Geraldine (Jacobi) Russell, a former actress who later taught elocution. Russell was always called by her second name; her mother had chosen it because she thought "Jane Russell" would look good on a marquee. At the time of her birth, Russell's parents lived in Canada, but they moved to Glendale, CA, when she was nine months old, later moving to Burbank and, when she was 12, to a farm in Van Nuys. Russell took piano lessons as a child and developed an interest in acting that led her to attend two drama schools after she graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1939. Her stay at the Theatrical Workshop run by Max Reinhardt was brief, but she spent six months at Maria Ouspenskaya's School of Dramatic Arts.
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Veteran actress JANE RUSSELL refuses to believe her late friend MARILYN MONROE committed suicide, and instead thinks "dirty tricks" ended her life. The 85-year-old ... claims the public perception of Monroe, who died in 1962, is far from what the blonde beauty was actually like. Russell says, "She wasn't a dumb blonde. "Right before she died, she was planning to marry JOE DiMAGGIO, her second husband, again, and she had a new movie contract. "So I don't think she killed herself. Someone did it for her.
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Jane was busy for the next six years, making films both at RKO and on loan-out. Most of her RKO pictures were tolerably entertaining in a very ordinary way, but the screenplays recycled clichés from other movies. For example, at the beginning of "Macao" she is drifting from place to place, using men for food and fares, and even picks pockets as a sideline - just like Lauren Bacall at the start of "To Have And Have Not". Only "The Las Vegas Story" has a surprise: the suggestion that Jane's character commits adultery while her husband gambles - a very daring plot point for 1952.
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By 1930, Russell was enrolled at the National Academy of Art in Chicago, working as an advanced student in painting and design. While a student, she exhibited at the Krochs Galleries (March 1930). She participated in both summer sessions of the Stone City art colony; few details of her life after 1935 exist. Russell married and moved to Boulder, Colorado, where she retired in the 1980s. Her last known residence is Grand Blanc, Michigan; it is presumed she died there in December 1995.
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Jane began to work in cabaret and night clubs, sometimes for large fees, and effectively gave up being a movie star. She was already heavily involved in WAIF, a charity she helped establish, and later, in keeping with her public image, was hired by Playtex to advertise their products.
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Her next movie appearance was in Fate Is the Hunter ( 1964 ), in which she was Jane Russell performing for the USO in a flashback sequence. Unfortunately, she made only four more movies after that, playing character parts in the final two.
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