Rosalind Russell

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Rosalind Russell

in the trailer for The Women (1939)
Born June 4, 1907(1907-06-04)
Waterbury, Connecticut, USA
Died November 28, 1976 (aged 69)
Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California,
Spouse(s) Frederick Brisson (1941-1976)
Children Lance Brisson (b.1943)

Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 – November 28, 1976) was a four-time Academy Award nominated and Tony Award winning American film and stage actress, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as originating the role of Auntie Mame on Broadway and in film.

She is the actress (tied with Meryl Streep) with the most Golden Globe Awards (for films) wins, with five. It is notable that she won every Golden Globe for which she was nominated.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Rosalind Russell was one of seven siblings born in Waterbury, Connecticut to Clara and James Edward Russell,[1] an Irish-American Catholic family. She was not named after the character from Shakespeare's As You Like It, but rather after the ship on which her parents had travelled. She attended Catholic schools before attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

[edit] Career

She started her career as a fashion model and was in many Broadway shows. In the early 1930s, she began to work for MGM, where she starred in many comedies, such as Forsaking All Others and Four's a Crowd, as well as dramas, including Craig's Wife and The Citadel. In 1939, she was cast as a catty gossip in the all-female comedy The Women, directed by George Cukor.

Russell and Cary Grant in His Girl Friday
Russell and Cary Grant in His Girl Friday

She proved her quick-witted talent for comedy in the classic screwball comedy His Girl Friday, directed by Howard Hawks. She played a quick-witted ace reporter who was also the ex-wife of her former newspaper editor (played by Cary Grant).

In the 1940s, she continued to make both comedies such as The Feminine Touch and Take a Letter Darling, dramas like Sister Kenny and Mourning Becomes Electra, and a murder mystery The Velvet Touch.

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

Russell returned to her native Waterbury for the world premiere of her movie The Girl Rush at the State Theater on August 18, 1955.

Probably her most memorable performance was in the title role of the long-running stage hit Auntie Mame and the subsequent movie version, in which she played an eccentric aunt whose orphan 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!"

From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, she continued to shine with older roles in a large number of movies, giving notable performances in Picnic, A Majority of One, Gypsy and The Trouble with Angels.

Russell was the logical choice for reprising her role as "Auntie Mame" when its Broadway musical adaptation Mame was set for production in 1966. She claimed to have turned it down since she preferred to move on to different roles. In reality, she did not want to burden the public with her growing health problems, which included rheumatoid arthritis.

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

[edit] Personal life

She married Danish-American producer Frederick Brisson on October 25, 1941. Fred was often referred to in Hollywood as "The Lizard of Roz" due to his habit of getting choice Broadway play roles for the movie to be played by his wife Roz. They had one child in 1943, a son named Lance. Her father-in-law was the successful Danish actor Carl Brisson.

Russell died after a long battle with breast cancer in 1976 at the age of 69, although initially her age was misreported because she had shaved a few years off her true age. She was survived by her husband and son. She is buried in Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Her autobiography, written with Chris Chase, entitled Life is a Banquet was published a year after her death. In the foreword (written by her husband), he states that Russell had a nervous breakdown sometime in the early 1940s. Details are scant, but it indicates that her health problems can be traced back to the 1940s.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Features

[edit] Short subject

  • The Candid Camera Story (Very Candid) of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures 1937 Convention (1937)
  • March of Time: The Movies Move On (1939)
  • March of Time: The Movies Move On (1939)
  • You Can't Fool a Camera (1941)
  • Screen Snapshots: 25th Anniversary (1945)
  • Screen Snapshots: Famous Hollywood Mothers (1947)
Awards
Preceded by
Ingrid Bergman
for The Bells of St. Mary's		 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1947
for Sister Kenny
1948
for Mourning Becomes Electra		 Succeeded by
Jane Wyman
for Johnny Belinda
Preceded by
Gertrude Lawrence
for The King and I		 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical
1953
for Wonderful Town		 Succeeded by
Dolores Gray
for Carnival in Flanders
Preceded by
Kay Kendall
for Les Girls		 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1959
for Auntie Mame		 Succeeded by
Marilyn Monroe
for Some Like It Hot
Preceded by
Shirley MacLaine
for The Apartment		 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1962
for A Majority of One
1963
for Gypsy		 Succeeded by
Shirley MacLaine
for Irma la Douce
Preceded by
Frank Sinatra		 The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
1972		 Succeeded by
Lew Wasserman
Preceded by
Walter Pidgeon		 Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award
1975		 Succeeded by
Pearl Bailey
Preceded by
Jerry Lewis
29th Academy Awards		 Oscars host
30th Academy Awards (with Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon, David Niven, and James Stewart)		 Succeeded by
Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, David Niven, Laurence Olivier, Tony Randall, and Mort Sahl
31st Academy Awards

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~battle/celeb/russell.htm

[edit] External links

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