Biography
This page uses content from the Rosalind Russell biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 - November 28, 1976) was a four-time Academy Award nominated and Tony Award winning American film, stage actress.
She is the actress with the most Golden Globe Awards (for films) wins with 5.
She was not, as some think, named after the character from Shakespeare's As You Like It, but rather after a ship on which her parents had travelled.
Life and career
Rosalind Russell was one of seven siblings born in Waterbury, Connecticut to an Irish-American Catholic family. She attended Catholic schools before attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.
She started her career as a fashion model and in many Broadway shows. In the early 1930s she began to work for MGM, where she starred in many comedies (Craig's Wife, 1936; Four's a Crowd, 1938) and dramas (The Citadel, 1938). In 1939 she was cast as a catty gossip in the great comedy The Women, directed by George Cukor, with an all-female cast, including Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and Paulette Goddard.
She proved her quick-witted talent for comedy in the unforgettable His Girl Friday (1940), directed by Howard Hawks. In this brilliant screwball comedy she played a beautiful ace reporter who is also the former wife of her newspaper editor (played by Cary Grant), who is still in love with her.
In the 1940s she was still wonderful in comedy (The Feminine Touch, 1941; Take a Letter Darling, 1942), but she also starred in many great dramas, where she gave really passionate performances (Sister Kenny, 1946; Mourning Becomes Electra, 1947).
Russell scored a big hit on Broadway with her Tony Award-winning success 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.
Probably her most memorable performance was in the title role of the long-running stage hit Auntie Mame (1956) and the subsequent movie version (1958), in which she played a mature and bizarre aunt whose orphan nephew comes to live with her. When asked what role was most closely identified with her, she replied that strangers who spotted her still called out, "Hey, Auntie Mame!"
From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s she starred in a large number of movies, giving notable performances in Picnic (1956), Gypsy (1962) and The Trouble with Angels (1966).
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 didn't want to burden the public with her escalating health problems, which now included rheumatoid arthritis.
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 her son, Lance Brisson.
She is buried in Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Rosalind Russell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street. Her autobiography, written with Chris Chase, entitled Life is a Banquet was published a year after her untimely death.
Marriages
She married Danish-American producer Frederick Brisson on October 25, 1941. Her father-in-law was the successful Danish actor Carl Brisson. Frederick and Rosalind Brisson had one child, a son, Lance, in 1943.
Academy Award Nominations
Russell was nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Actress:
- 1943 - My Sister Eileen
- 1947 - Sister Kenny
- 1948 - Mourning Becomes Electra
- 1959 - Auntie Mame
Filmography
- Evelyn Prentice (1934)
- The President Vanishes (1934)
- Forsaking All Others (1934)
- The Night Is Young (1935)
- The Casino Murder Case (1935)
- West Point of the Air (1935)
- Reckless (1935)
- China Seas (1935)
- Rendezvous (1935)
- It Had to Happen (1936)
- Under Two Flags (1936)
- Trouble for Two (1936)
- Craig's Wife (1936)
- The Candid Camera Story (Very Candid) of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures 1937 Convention (1937) (short subject)
- Night Must Fall (1937)
- Live, Love and Learn (1937)
- Man-Proof (1938)
- Four's a Crowd (1938)
- The Citadel (1938)
- Fast and Loose (1939)
- March of Time: The Movies Move On (1939) (short subject)
- The Women (1939)
- His Girl Friday (1940)
- No Time for Comedy (1940)
- Hired Wife (1940)
- This Thing Called Love (1940)
- You Can't Fool a Camera (1941) (short subject)
- They Met in Bombay (1941)
- The Feminine Touch (1941)
- Design for Scandal (1941)
- Take a Letter, Darling (1942)
- My Sister Eileen (1942)
- Flight for Freedom (1943)
- What a Woman! (1943)
- Screen Snapshots: 25th Anniversary (1945) (short subject)
- Roughly Speaking (1945)
- She Wouldn't Say Yes (1945)
- Sister Kenny (1946)
- The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947)
- Screen Snapshots: Famous Hollywood Mothers (1947) (short subject)
- Mourning Becomes Electra (1947)
- The Velvet Touch (1948)
- Tell It to the Judge (1949)
- A Woman of Distinction (1950)
- Never Wave at a WAC (1952)
- The Girl Rush (1955)
- Picnic (1955)
- Auntie Mame (1958)
- A Majority of One (1961)
- Five Finger Exercise (1962)
- Gypsy (1962)
- The Trouble with Angels (1966)
- Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad (1967)
- Rosie! (1967)
- Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968)
- Mrs. Pollifax - Spy (1971)
External links
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