Jane Russell Biography

Fast Facts

• Billionaire filmmaker Howard Hughes, impressed with her physical assets, signed her to a seven-year film deal in 1940
• Her debut, filmed in 1941 but first screened in 1943, was The Outlaw
• Most memorable role was in the 1953 musical-comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with costar Marilyn Monroe
• Unable to conceive children after a botched abortion as a teenager and having run into problems trying to adopt foreign-born children, she founded the World Adoption International Fund in 1968
• Appeared on Broadway for six months in 1971, replacing Elaine Stritch in Stephen Sondheim's Company
• Became the spokesperson for the Playtex Cross Your Heart bra in the 1970s
• Her 1985 autobiography, My Paths and Detours, divulged episodes of infidelity that doomed her first marriage and led to battles with alcohol