Jane Russell: Biography of the Hollywood Bombshell Who Redefined Glamour

Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was born on June 21, 1921, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her mother, Geraldine, was a former actress, which heavily influenced Jane’s path into show business. She was discovered by the famously eccentric billionaire and filmmaker Howard Hughes while working as a model. Hughes cast her as the lead in the controversial film The Outlaw (1943), a project that faced numerous issues with censorship. The publicity surrounding the film—and her figure—catapulted Jane into sex symbol status.

Throughout the early 1950s, Jane Russell starred in several successful films, including His Kind of Woman (1951), alongside Robert Mitchum and Vincent Price; Macao (1952), again with Mitchum; and the classic Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), where she shared the spotlight with Marilyn Monroe. Her confident screen presence and sultry voice made her a favorite in Hollywood’s golden age. However, as the 1960s approached, her film roles became less frequent and were often in lower-quality productions. Her final film appearance was in Darker Than Amber (1970), after which she transitioned to television and Broadway performances.

Jane Russell was married three times. Her first marriage was to football player Bob Waterfield in 1943, after becoming pregnant by him at age 18. She underwent a failed abortion that nearly cost her life and left her infertile, a traumatic experience that led her to become a staunch anti-abortion activist. The couple went on to adopt three children: Tracy, Thomas, and Robert. In 1955, she founded the World Adoption International Fund (WAIF), an organization aimed at simplifying adoption processes for abandoned children. Her marriage to Waterfield ended in 1968. Just two months later, she married actor Roger Barrett, who tragically died of a heart attack the same year. In 1974, she married real estate broker John Calvin and remained with him until her death.

Russell struggled with alcoholism for many years but later became deeply religious. In one of her final interviews, she described herself as “a mean-spirited, narrow-minded, right-wing, conservative Christian—but not a racist.” Her friendship with Marilyn Monroe was also notable. Monroe once said, “Jane tried to convert me [to religion], and I tried to introduce her to Freud.”

Jane Russell died on February 28, 2011, due to respiratory complications. She left behind a legacy as one of Hollywood’s most unforgettable bombshells—outspoken, glamorous, and fiercely independent.

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Carla Marinho Leal

Writer, traveler and above all, curious about many subjects. She has studied cinema since 2002 and is a Specialist in Cinematographic Studies from UNICAP. Founder of the blog Purviance and the website Cinemaclássico. She loves Charles Chaplin, Raj Kapoor and constantly browses films from all over the world.

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