Rosalind Russell

Rosalind Russell
Russell in publicity photo for General Electric Theatre (1956)
Born	Catherine Rosalind Russell (1907-06-04)June 4, 1907 Waterbury, Connecticut, U.S.
Died	Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Breast cancer
Resting place	Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City
Occupation	Actress, singer, screenwriter
Years active	1929–1972
Spouse(s)	Frederick Brisson (m. 1941–76)
Children	Lance (b. 1943)

Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 – November 28, 1976) was an American actress of stage and screen, known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), as well as for her portrayals of Mame Dennis in Auntie Mame (1958) and Rose in Gypsy (1962). A noted comedian, she won all five Golden Globes for which she was nominated and was tied with Meryl Streep for most wins until Streep won her sixth award in 2007. Russell won a Tony Award in 1953 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Ruth in the Broadway show Wonderful Town (a musical based on the film My Sister Eileen, in which she also starred). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress four times throughout her career.

In addition to her fame as a comedian, Russell was known for playing character roles, exceptionally wealthy, dignified, ladylike women, as well as for being one of the few actresses of her time who regularly played professional women, such as judges, reporters, and psychiatrists. She had a wide career span from the 1930s to the 1970s, and attributed her long career to the fact that, although usually playing classy and glamorous roles, she never became a sex symbol.

Early years

Rosalind Russell was one of seven children born in Waterbury, Connecticut, to James Edward and Clara A. (née McKnight) Russell, an Irish-American Catholic family. She was named after a ship on which her parents had traveled, not for the character from As You Like It. She attended Catholic schools, including Rosemont College in Rosemont, Pennsylvania and Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, before attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. Her parents thought Russell was studying to become a teacher, and were unaware that she was planning to become a stage comedian.

Career

Russell (c. 1930)

Russell started her career as a fashion model and was in many Broadway shows. Against parental objections, she took a job at a stock company for seven months at Saranac Lake and then Hartford, Connecticut. Afterwards, she moved to Boston, where she acted for a year at a theater group for Edward E. Clive. Later, she appeared in a revue in New York (The Garrick Gaieties). There, she took voice lessons and built a career in the opera, which was short-lived due to her difficulty in reaching high notes.

In the early 1930s, Russell went west to Los Angeles to be a contract actress for Universal Pictures. When she first arrived on the lot, she was ignored by most of the crew and later told the press she felt terrible and humiliated at the studio, which affected her self-confidence. Unhappy with Universal's leadership, and second-class film status at the time, Russell set her sights on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and was able to get out of her Universal contract on her own terms. When MGM first approached her for a screen test, Russell was not enthusiastic, remembering Universal. When she met MGM's Benny Thau and Ben Piazza, she was surprised, as they were "the soul of understanding". Her screen test was directed by Harold S. Bucquet, and she later recalled that she was hired because of a closeup he took of her.

In The Women (1939) with Norma Shearer

Picked up by MGM, Russell debuted in Evelyn Prentice (1934). Although the role was small, she was noticed, with one critic saying that she was "convincing as the woman scorned". She starred in many comedies such as Forsaking All Others (1934), and Four's a Crowd (1938), as well as dramas, including Craig's Wife (1936) (which would be the film's second of three remakes; Joan Crawford did the third) and The Citadel (1938). Russell was first acclaimed when she co-starred with Robert Young in the MGM drama West Point of the Air (1935). One critic wrote: "Rosalind Russell as the 'other woman' in the story gives an intelligent and deft handling to her scenes with Young." She quickly rose to fame and, by 1935, was seen as a replacement for actress Myrna Loy, as she took many roles Loy was initially set for. Furthermore, one journalist claimed that she was the only newcomer of 1935 destined for stardom.

In her first years at Hollywood, Russell was, both in her personal life and film career, characterized as a sophisticated lady. This dissatisfied Russell, who claimed in a 1936 interview:

Being typed as a lady is the greatest misfortune possible to a motion picture actress. It limits your characterizations, confines you to play feminine sops and menaces and the public never highly approves of either. An impeccably dressed lady is always viewed with suspicion in real life and when you strut onto the screen with beautiful clothes and charming manners, the most naive of theatergoers senses immediately that you are in a position to do the hero no good. I earnestly want to get away from this. First, because I want to improve my career and professional life and, secondly because I am tired of being a clothes horse – a sort of hothouse orchid in a stand of wild flowers.

Russell approached director Frank Lloyd for help changing her image, but, instead of helping her, Lloyd cast her as a wealthy aristocrat in Under Two Flags (1936). In 1939, she was cast as catty gossip Sylvia Fowler in the all-female comedy The Women, directed by George Cukor. The film was a major hit, boosting her career and establishing her reputation as a comedian.

With Cary Grant and Ralph Bellamy in His Girl Friday (1940)

Russell continued to display her talent for comedy in the classic screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), directed by Howard Hawks. In the film, a reworking of Ben Hecht's story The Front Page, Russell played quick-witted ace reporter Hildy Johnson, who was also the ex-wife of her newspaper editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant). Russell had been, as she put it, "Everyone's fifteenth choice" for the role of Hildy in the film. Prior to her being cast, Howard Hawks had asked Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, Claudette Colbert, Jean Arthur, Margaret Sullavan and Ginger Rogers if they'd like to play the brash, fast-talking reporter in his film. All of them refused. Russell found out about this while riding on a train to New York, when she read an article in the New York Times saying that she'd been cast in the film and listing all the actresses who had turned the part down.

In the 1940s, she made comedies such as The Feminine Touch (1941) and Take a Letter, Darling (1942), dramas including Sister Kenny (1946), and Mourning Becomes Electra (1947), and a murder mystery: The Velvet Touch (1948).

Over the course of her career, Russell earned four Academy Award nominations for Best Actress: My Sister Eileen (1942); Sister Kenny (1946); Mourning Becomes Electra (1947); and the movie version of Auntie Mame (1958). She received a Special Academy Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1972, which came with an Oscar statuette.

Russell scored a big hit on Broadway with her Tony Award-winning performance in Wonderful Town (1953), a musical version of her successful film of a decade earlier, My Sister Eileen. Russell reprised her starring role for a 1958 television special.

Rosalind Russell (left) and Polly Rowles in the original Broadway production of Auntie Mame (1957)

Perhaps her most memorable performance was in the title role of the long-running stage hit Auntie Mame and the subsequent 1958 movie version, in which she played an eccentric aunt whose orphaned nephew comes to live with her. When asked which role she was most closely identified with, she replied that strangers who spotted her still called out, "Hey, Auntie Mame!" She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play in 1957 for her performance. Patrick Dennis dedicated his second Auntie Mame book Around the World with Auntie Mame to "the one and only Rosalind Russell" in 1958.

She continued to appear in movies through the mid-1960s, including Picnic (1955), A Majority of One (1961), Five Finger Exercise (1962), Gypsy (1962), and The Trouble with Angels (1966). Russell was the logical choice for reprising her role as Auntie Mame when its Broadway musical adaptation Mame was set for production in 1966, but she declined for health reasons. In addition to her acting career, Russell also wrote the story (under the name C. A. McKnight) for the film The Unguarded Moment (1956), a story of sexual harassment starring Esther Williams.

Personal life

On October 25, 1941, Russell married Danish-American producer Frederick Brisson, son of actor Carl Brisson. Cary Grant was responsible for the couple having met, and was the best man at Frederick and Rosalind's wedding. Brisson had been traveling from England to the United States by ship in 1939, and The Women was playing on an endless loop during the voyage. After hearing the audio for the film day after day while traveling, Brisson decided he had better sit down and watch the whole film. He became so enamored with Russell's performance as Sylvia Fowler that he turned to his friends and proclaimed: "I'm either gonna kill that girl, or I'm gonna marry her." (Or so he liked to say.)

Brisson stayed with Cary Grant in his guest house while Grant was filming His Girl Friday. Upon hearing that Grant was making the movie with Russell, Brisson asked his friend if he could meet her. Cary Grant then spent weeks greeting Russell each morning on set with the question, "Have you met Freddie Brisson?" in an effort to pique the actress's curiosity. One night, when Russell opened her door to let Grant in before they went dancing, as they often did, she found him standing next to a stranger. Grant sheepishly explained that the odd fellow was Freddie Brisson, the man whom he had mentioned so often, and they set off for dinner, with Freddie in tow. Russell and Brisson's marriage lasted 35 years, ending with her death. They had one child in 1943, a son, Carl Lance Brisson.

She was a Roman Catholic, and a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California.

Russell supported Richard Nixon in two of his early, unsuccessful campaigns.

Death

Grave of Rosalind Russell at Holy Cross

Russell died of breast cancer on November 28, 1976. She was survived by her husband and her son. She is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Rosalind Russell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1708 Vine Street.

Her autobiography, written with Chris Chase, Life Is a Banquet, was published a year after her death. The foreword (written by her husband) states that Russell had a mental breakdown in 1943. She made no films in 1944. Details are scant, but the book indicates that health problems and the deaths of a sister and a brother were major factors leading to her breakdown. Russell had Rheumatoid Arthritis, and the UCSF Arthritis Research Center currently bears her name.

In 2009, a documentary film Life Is a Banquet: The Life of Rosalind Russell, narrated by Kathleen Turner, was shown at film festivals across the U.S. and on some PBS stations.

Work

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1934	Evelyn Prentice	Mrs. Harrison
	The President Vanishes	Sally Voorman
	Forsaking All Others	Eleanor
1935	The Night Is Young	Countess Zarika Rafay
	The Casino Murder Case	Doris
	West Point of the Air	Dare Marshall
	Reckless	Jo
	China Seas	Sybil Barclay
	Rendezvous	Joel
1936	It Had to Happen	Beatrice Newnes
	Under Two Flags	Lady Venetia Cunningham
	Trouble for Two	Miss Vandeleur
	Craig's Wife	Harriet Craig
1937	Night Must Fall	Olivia
	Live, Love and Learn	Julie Stoddard
1938	Man-Proof	Elizabeth Kent
	Four's a Crowd	Jean Christy
	The Citadel	Christine
1939	Fast and Loose	Garda Sloane
	The Women	Mrs. Howard Fowler - Sylvia
1940	His Girl Friday	Hildy Johnson
	Hired Wife	Kendal Browning
	No Time for Comedy	Linda Esterbrook
	This Thing Called Love	Ann Winters
1941	They Met in Bombay	Anya Von Duren
	The Feminine Touch	Julie Hathaway
	Design for Scandal	Judge Cornelia C. Porter
1942	Take a Letter, Darling	A.M. MacGregor
	My Sister Eileen	Ruth Sherwood	Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress
1943	Flight for Freedom	Tonie Carter
	What a Woman!	Carol Ainsley
1945	Roughly Speaking	Louise Randall Pierson
	She Wouldn't Say Yes	Dr. Susan A. Lane
1946	Sister Kenny	Elizabeth Kenny	Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress
1947	The Guilt of Janet Ames	Janet Ames
	Mourning Becomes Electra	Lavinia Mannon	Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress
1948	The Velvet Touch	Valerie Stanton
1949	Tell It to the Judge	Marsha Meredith
1950	A Woman of Distinction	Susan Manning Middlecott
1953	Never Wave at a WAC	Jo McBain
1955	The Girl Rush	Kim Halliday
	Picnic	Miss Rosemary Sydney
1958	Auntie Mame	Mame Dennis	Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Laurel Award for Top Female Comedy Performance Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress
1961	A Majority of One	Mrs. Bertha Jacoby	Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1962	Five Finger Exercise	Louise Harington
	Gypsy	Rose Hovick	Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy Laurel Award for Top Female Musical Performance (5th place)
1966	The Trouble with Angels	Mother Superior	Laurel Award for Top Female Comedy Performance (4th place)
1967	Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad	Madame Rosepettle
	Rosie!	Rosie Lord
1968	Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows	Mother Superior
1971	Mrs. Pollifax – Spy	Mrs. Pollifax

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1951	Schlitz Playhouse of Stars	Guest	episode: Never Wave at a WAC
1955	The Loretta Young Show	Guest Hostess	episode: Week-End in Winnetka episode: Fear Me Not
1956	General Electric Theater	Cynthia	episode: The Night Goes On
1958	Wonderful Town	Ruth Sherwood	TV movie
1959	Startime	Host	episode: The Wonderful World of Entertainment
1972	The Crooked Hearts	Laurita Dorsey	TV movie

Theatre (Broadway)

Dates of production	Title	Role	Genre	Notes
October 16, 1930 – October 1930	The Garrick Gaieties		Musical revue
April 20, 1931 – April 1931	Company's Coming	Miss Mallory	Comedy
February 25, 1953 – July 3, 1954	Wonderful Town	Ruth Sherwood	Musical	Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical
October 31, 1956 – June 28, 1958	Auntie Mame	Auntie Mame	Comedy	Nominated—Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play

Radio appearances

Year	Program	Episode/source
1939	Lux Radio Theater	Stage Door Role of Terry
1951	Screen Directors Playhouse	Take a Letter, Darling
1952	Theatre Guild on the Air	The Damask Check

External links

• Rosalind Russell at the Internet Broadway Database
• Rosalind Russell at the Internet Movie Database
• Rosalind Russell at the TCM Movie Database
• Forever Mame: The Life of Rosalind Russell by Bernard F. Dick
• Profile at Turner Classic Movies
• Life Is a Banquet at IMDb
• Photographs and bibliography
• Frederick Brisson papers, 1934-1984 (includes Rosalind Russell papers), held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts