Jane Russell

The bra that never existed

Howard Hughes spent months obsessed with the aerodynamics of Jane Russell's bust. In 1941, the tycoon designed a bra with metal cups for the actress to wear in The Outlaw, but she found it so uncomfortable that she ended up hiding it on set. She shot the film in her own lingerie, and Hughes never noticed the difference.

Censorship did the rest of the work.

The release was delayed until 1943 and received only a limited screening because censors were scandalized by the lead actress's neckline. Russell spent nearly five years collecting a weekly salary of one thousand dollars for doing absolutely nothing, while her image on billboards plastered the entire United States. That forced wait put her in an odd position within the industry.

She was not a typical actress, because audiences knew her before they had ever seen her act on the big screen. She was a publicity creation of Hughes that ran purely on visual momentum. But after the release of The Paleface in 1948 alongside Bob Hope, it became clear that her gift for comedy was real and that her career was not going to die with the initial scandal.

The Brunette Opposite the Blonde Whirlwind

In 1953, filming began on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and the press expected a war of egos in the Fox dressing rooms. In reality, Russell became the protector of Marilyn Monroe throughout the production. Marilyn suffered panic attacks before going on stage, and Jane was the only one who could get her out of her dressing room by holding her arm.

She was paid 200,000 dollars for that job.

While Marilyn received just over 10,000 dollars for the same project, Russell was already negotiating her contracts with the confidence of someone who knows her name sells tickets on its own. In the film she played Dorothy Shaw and showed a sense of comic timing that many critics had overlooked until then. The chemistry between the two worked because Russell didn't try to compete with her co-star's fragility.

And the gamble paid off.

After that success, she made Gentlemen Marry Brunettes in 1955, but the sequel didn't have the same box office impact. So she began diversifying her career beyond the major Hollywood studios. Russell always understood that her figure was a tool of her work and not a prison, which allowed her to age with a dignity that many stars of her era couldn't manage.

A Retreat Between Sheet Music and Faith

Her personal life was marked by her inability to have biological children after a botched abortion in her youth. In 1955, she founded the WAIF organization to make international adoptions easier at a time when the paperwork was a legal nightmare. She helped thousands of children find homes in the United States, and she herself adopted three children with her first husband, football player Bob Waterfield.

She never hid her strong religious convictions.

She formed a gospel group called Hollywood Christian Group that met at her home to sing and read the Bible. In 1954, her song Do Lord sold a million copies, giving her a financial independence that few actresses of her generation enjoyed. She no longer needed Howard Hughes to decide what clothes she had to wear in front of the camera.

In 1985, she published her autobiography, Jane Russell: My Path and My Detours, in which she detailed her struggles with alcoholism. She died on February 28, 2011, at her home in Santa Maria, California, from respiratory failure at age 89.