Jane Russell's arrival in
show business was accompanied by so much ballyhoo that the rest
of her career seems an anti-climax. Jane has in fact had a very successful
career, but is still famous mainly as a Love Goddess, and in particular as
the possessor of a spectacular figure. That figure combined with that ballyhoo
made Jane one of the most influential pin-ups ever, ranking alongside Esther
Williams and Gina Lollobrigida. More than any-one else, Jane ushered in the
concept of large breasts, and created in the general public an enthusiasm
for opulent figures.
She was born Ernestine Jane
Geraldine Russell in June 1921 in Minnesota, and grew up in California within
a strong family of devout Christians. While in her teens, Jane flirted with
the idea of acting, and attended drama classes. On leaving school she tried
various jobs for very short periods, including modeling. One photo of Jane
as a model was seen by a Hollywood agent who showed it to an associate of
Howard Hughes.
In 1940 Hughes was producing "The
Outlaw", a Western to be directed by Howard Hawks. The two stars had
already been chosen, but Hughes was aware that David O. Selznick
had secured publicity for "Gone With The Wind" by
searching for an actress to play Scarlett O'Hara. Hughes decided to test several other
young hopefuls, and when he saw Jane's photograph, he added her to the list.
Jane's screen test was directed
by Howard Hawks himself, with Lucien Ballard as cinematographer. Ballard was still in the early stages
of his career, but developed to become arguably the most versatile and accomplished
American cinematographer of his generation. Years later, Ballard recalled
testing Jane. "Well, I worked with Howard Hawks shooting tests for "The
Outlaw" for Howard Hughes. We filmed these tests on 16mm in Hughes' basement.
They were testing a hundred boys and a hundred girls for the leads, as a publicity
stunt of course. Hughes had already picked the two he wanted, but we went
ahead anyway. So after a while I told Howard I wanted to do some tests on
my own, and I took Jane Russell, because she'd been hanging around me for
a while, always asking why I did that and why I did this - she was just a
kid at the time. So Howard said OK, and asked me to use Jack Buetel, who he
liked quite a bit for the role. Anyway, I made these tests in the haystack,
used cross-lights so her tits show big, and Hughes went wild for it. I didn't
know it then, but he had a thing for tits. He had the scene made into a loop,
and he'd run it over and over again. So anyway, he cancelled the two people
he'd signed for the leads, and decided to use Jane Russell and Jack Buetel."
Filming began, and Jane was
soon posing for publicity pictures which, for the most part, concentrated
on her figure. Jane has always claimed this took her by surprise, and possibly
correctly. Jane was the first star whose glamour pictures unashamedly emphasised
her bust. In 1940 most Hollywood glamour stars had economical
figures - some had almost no figure at all - and the few stars of bounteous
femininity had always been very discreet in their publicity photographs. Jane's
pictures were not discreet. They showed her lounging in low-cut blouses with
a surly expression on her face. Frequently the blouse was far too large and
was slipping from her shoulders. A picture of Jane in a haystack became one
of the three photographs most requested by American servicemen during World
War Two. "Mean, moody and magnificent" was the descriptive slogan.
"The Outlaw" itself
ran into problems, and after a few weeks Howard Hawks and Lucien Ballard were
fired. Howard Hughes began directing the movie. Hughes was also engaged in
a running battle with the Breen Office which was responsible for enforcing
the Production Code. The Breen Office had warned Hughes as to what was permissible,
and when they saw "The Outlaw" in 1941, they refused a certificate until
and unless major changes were made.
After further skirmishing, "The Outlaw"
was given a Seal Of Approval in 1943, but Howard Hughes was now fully occupied
supplying equipment for the Second World War. Hughes decided that
he would not release "The Outlaw" until the war was over! He
refused to allow Jane to make any other movies, but instructed his publicity
chief, Russell Birdwell, to continue promoting her. Birdwell did this very
successfully, and throughout the war Jane Russell was a movie star without
a movie, a pioneering glamour queen who could be seen in magazines,
but not on the silver screen.
In 1946, with The Second
World War over, Hughes and Birdwell began a sales campaign of unbridled vulgarity.
Enormous pictures of Jane with plunging necklines were spread across advertising
hoardings, accompanied by slogans like "What Are the Two Great Reasons
For Jane Russell's Rise to Stardom?" The general public flocked to "The
Outlaw", and Jane was now an authentic star. She
was also an influential star. Other well-endowed actresses began to flaunt
their mammary assets in an attempt to achieve star status, and one ambitious
starlet, Marie McDonald, labeled herself "The Body". Breasts
in general became bigger, not only in movies, but in advertisements
and
calendars and in the new medium, television.
Jane, however, was under
personal contract to Howard Hughes for whom the movies were just a hobby,
and her film career stalled for two years. Jane
took this opportunity to branch out into singing. She appeared in a few nightclubs
and made recordings of some well known "standards".
In 1948 Paramount threw Jane a life-line.
She was cast as Calamity Jane in "The Paleface", where she was an
appropriate foil to Bob Hope's Painless Potter, an incompetent dentist out
west. Potter is a typical Bob Hope character: amiable but boastful, lecherous
and cowardly ("Brave men run in my family"), who, of course, needs
Calamity Jane to pull the irons out of his various fires. "The Paleface"
presented a different Jane Russell, resourceful and humorous, and suggested
that comedy, not drama, might be her natural habitat.
Howard Hughes now kept Jane idle for another three years, during which time he bought
RKO Studios. He then put her to work, and at last Jane's movie career gained
real momentum. She appeared with Frank Sinatra in "Double Dynamite",
and Hughes then cast her opposite Robert Mitchum in
"His Kind Of Woman", a movie intended as a lush melodrama full
of
romance and intrigue with a modicum of comic relief. Hughes infuriated director John Farrow with his persistent
meddling, and when the film was almost completed, Farrow walked off the movie.
To the astonishment of the cast, Hughes then decided that most of the film
should be re-shot with Richard Fleischer directing. Much of the new material
was comedy. In the editing stages the two versions were combined, and the
result is a movie with a split personality, part film noir, part comedy. "His
Kind Of Woman" has puzzled movie-goers ever since, and is now a cult movie.
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.
Her films away from RKO
were far more distinguished. At 20th Century Fox she worked with
Howard Hawks at last, opposite Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes",
one of her most entertaining movies. (Hawks later admitted openly that Jane's
help was invaluable in obtaining a performance from Marilyn Monroe.) Jane
starred with Bob Hope again in "Son Of Paleface", and back at Fox,
did some of her best work opposite Clark Gable in "The Tall Men".
(At long last this film is now available on DVD.)
Jane's burst of film-making
activity ended as suddenly as it had begun. In 1955 Howard Hughes sold RKO
to a television consortium. He gave Jane a new seven year contract worth a million dollars
for six movies, which also allowed Jane to work
outside the contract. However, having lost interest in making movies, Hughes
did not ask Jane to make any(!) so she was paid a million dollars for doing
nothing! Jane made films independently of Hughes for two years, and sometimes
acted as her own producer. In 1957 she starred in "The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown",
and then stopped making movies. In her autobiography, Jane gives no explanation
for this abrupt halt in her film career.
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.
In recent years Jane has
contributed to various television documentaries about the movies of her day,
and still sometimes makes personal appearances at retrospective film festivals.
On one such recent occasion Jane admitted that, although many of her films
were undistinguished, she had enjoyed her movie career.
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