Jane Russell

The Actress Heated Up the Silver Screen

Jane Russell started her career in movies as star of "The Outlaw," a film so sultry that it sat unreleased for 5 years while its producer, Howard Hughes, negotiated with the censors over shots of her cleavage.

Ms. Russell, who died Monday at age 89, was a star long before most of the public ever saw one of her movies—as a popular, World War II pinup.

But so over-the-top was her appearance that she had more success in comedies, including "The Paleface" (1948) with Bob Hope.

Mr. Hope liked to introduce her on his radio show as "the 2 and only Jane Russell."

Perhaps the highlight of Ms. Russell's career was co-starring with another bombshell, Marilyn Monroe, in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," Anita Loos's sly 1953 hit musical about a pair of showgirls on the prowl.

She was a native of Bemidji, Minn., and everything about her was real, including her name, Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell.

Her family moved to the Los Angeles area in the 1930s. Her father worked as an office manager and her mother was a lay preacher. Ms. Russell took piano and acting lessons.

It was while she was working as a receptionist that she was discovered and signed immediately by Mr. Hughes to a film contract.

She made a string of movies including a pair of films noirs co-starring Robert Mitchum, one of the few leads who seemed to thrive on screen with her, "His Kind of Woman" (1951) and "Macao" (1952).

In the late 1940s, Ms. Russell launched a musical career as a nightclub singer.

She also recorded gospel music and headed a Hollywood Bible study group. In 1971, she did a turn on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim's "Company."

She also became the Tv spokesman for Playtex, and the ubiquitous Cross Your Heart Bras — "for us full-figured gals"— reintroduced her to generations unaware of what the original fuss had been about.

Unable to have children herself, Ms. Russell adopted 3 children and founded World Adoption International Agency, which helped arrange the adoptions of over 40,000 overseas children.