Jane Russell RIP
Another week, another death. Is Kirk the only figure left now? One of the liveblogs I was following on Monday morning made a quite humourous observation along the lines of ‘Jesus, Michael’s looking really old’ when Issur Danielovitch cropped up – well, it made me laugh. I don’t have a huge amount to say on Jane Russell or her career, to be honest I’ve not seen many of her movies – including (but don’t tell anyone) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as I’m not a musicals fan – but here is her second most famous performance, in the controversial The Outlaw:
Whilst I don’t think she will be remembered for her acting prowess or appearances in many golden age classics her footnote in cinema history is assured due to then unique marketing strategy that Howard Hughes (who had recently acquired RKO) built around her sultry debut, including the revelation that ‘a new poll reveals her to be the most popular starlet in Hollywood’ (completely made up) and that a new bra had been designed to accentuate her ample assets – it was quite a scandal at the time. Whilst I very much doubt that studio marketing and publicity departments were necessarily the paragons of virtue of accuracy prior to 1943 it did represent a change of tactics for the supposed vulgar Tinseltown. Interview here.
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