Catherine Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 – November 28, 1976) was an American actress, comedian, screenwriter and singer, 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. Russell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1953 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.

 

 *His Girl Friday (1940) - Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

28/07/2019.

Rosalind Russell - Actress, comedian, screenwriter, singer

*Russell in 1950

1. Profile :

Born    Catherine Rosalind Russell
June 4, 1907
Waterbury, Connecticut, U.S.

Died    November 28, 1976 (aged 69)
Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Resting place    Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City

Occupation    Actress, comedian, screenwriter, singer
Years active    1929–1972
Spouse(s)    Frederick Brisson (1941–1976; her death)
Children    1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Introduction :

Catherine Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 – November 28, 1976) was an American actress, comedian, screenwriter and singer, 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. Russell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1953 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 success as a comedic lead, Russell was known for playing dramatic characters as well, especially wealthy, dignified, ladylike women, 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

*"Man-Proof" (1938) | Rosalind Russell:

3. Early years :

Catherine Rosalind Russell was one of seven children born in Waterbury, Connecticut, to James Edward, a lawyer, and Clara A. (née McKnight) Russell, a teacher. The Russells were an Irish-American Catholic family. She was named after a ship on which her parents had traveled. 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 comedic actress. Upon graduation from the performing arts school, Russell acted in summer stock and joined a repertory company in Boston.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Career :

 *Russell (in 1955)

4.1 Early career :

Russell began 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, where she was hired as a contract player for Universal Studios. 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 Universal, which affected her self-confidence. Unhappy with Universal's leadership, and second-class studio status at the time, Russell set her sights on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 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 wary, remembering her experience at 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

Under contract to MGM, Russell debuted in Evelyn Prentice (1934). Although the role was small, she received good notices, 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 for which Loy was initially set.

In her first years in Hollywood, Russell was characterized, both in her personal life and film career, 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). She was cast as catty gossip Sylvia Fowler in the all-female comedy The Women (1939), 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 would 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 had been cast in the film and listing all the actresses who had turned the part down.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.2 Later career :

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

*Rosalind Russell in Wonderful Town, on the cover of Time (March 30, 1953)

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 repriced 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 comedy Auntie Mame (based on a Patrick Dennis novel) as well as the 1958 film version, in which she played an eccentric aunt whose orphaned nephew comes to live with her. When asked with which role she was most closely identified, 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 novel 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 the musical version, Mame, was set for a production on Broadway 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.

5. Awards and nominations :

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 Auntie Mame (1958), the film version of her Broadway comedy hit. She received a Special Academy Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1972, which came with an Oscar statuette.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. 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's 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.

Russell was a devout 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 political campaigns, first for the presidency in 1960 opposing John F. Kennedy and for governor of California in 1962.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7. Death :

Months before her death, Russell meets with First Lady Betty Ford (herself a breast cancer survivor) at the White House on May 11, 1976.

 *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, in the 1700 block of Vine Street.

Her autobiography, Life Is a Banquet, written with Chris Chase, 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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8. Work :

 8.1 Film :

Year     Title     Role     Notes

1934     Evelyn Prentice     Mrs. Nancy 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 Carter    
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 Grayne    
Live, Love and Learn     Julie Stoddard    
1938     Man-Proof     Elizabeth Kent    
Four's a Crowd     Jean Christy    
The Citadel     Christine Barlow    
1939     Fast and Loose     Garda Sloane    
The Women     Sylvia Fowler 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
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 

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  8.2 Television :

Year     Title     Role     Notes

1951     Schlitz Playhouse of Stars     Guest     episode: Never Wave at a WAC
1953     What's My Line     Mystery Guest     Air date: 4 January 1953
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
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8.3 Broadway theatre :

Production Dates     Title     Role     Genre     Notes

October 16, 1930 - October 1930     The Garrick Gaieties     Performer     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
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8.4 Radio appearances :

Year     Program     Episode/Source
1939     Lux Radio Theatre     Stage Door role of Terry
1940     Screen Guild Players     Ninotchka
1951     Screen Directors Playhouse     Take a Letter, Darling
1952     Theatre Guild on the Air     The Damask Cheek

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

=========================================================================