Former Sedona resident Jane Russell, 89, an actress and sex symbol in the 1940s and 1950s, died Monday, Feb. 28, reportedly from respiratory failure in Santa Maria, Calif.
Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was born June 21, 1921, in Bemidji, Minn., to a U.S. Army officer and a former actress. After high school, she modeled and studied acting.
She came to national attention after billionaire industrialist Howard Hughes selected her — and her 38-inch bust — during a nationwide “chest hunt” for an actress to star in his 1941 film “The Outlaw.”
Due to problems getting shots of Russell’s cleavage in the film past the censorship board, the movie wasn’t released until 1943, and only in a limited number of theaters.
During World War II, thanks to Hughes’ publicity efforts, Russell became famous, especially as a pinup girl.
Under contract to Hughes’ RKO studios, she was loaned to Paramount Pictures where she stared opposite Bob Hope in the 1948 Western comedy “The Paleface.”
She starred in more than a dozen movies in the 1950s including “His Kind of Woman” with Vincent Price and Raymond Burr, “Double Dynamite” with Groucho Marx and Frank Sinatra, and “Son of Paleface” with Hope and Roy Rogers. However, her next major box office blockbuster was the 1953 musical, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” where she starred opposite Marilyn Monroe. She starred in the 1955 sequel, “Gentlemen Marry Brunettes,” but without Monroe.
Russell effectively ended her movie stardom in 1957. She formed a gospel quartet and began a nightclub act at The Sands casino in Las Vegas.
Her film career faded by the late 1960s with only a few minor roles until her last film “Darker Than Amber,” in 1970. However, Russell, with her still-famous bust, became spokeswoman for Playtex bras and starred in commercials through the 1960s and 1970s.
Russell was married to football quarterback Bob Waterfield from 1943 to 1968. They adopted a daughter, Tracy, and son, Tommy, in 1952. She was unable to have children herself due to complications from illegal abortions she admitted she had in her youth. She founded the World Adoption International Fund in 1955 to help Americans adopt children from overseas. The organization has assisted in the adoptions of more than 50,000 children. In 1956, Russell and Waterfield adopted their second son, Robert John.
After a divorce from Waterfield in 1968, she married actor Roger Barrett, who died of a heart attack three months later.
Russell married her third husband, John Calvin Peoples, a real estate broker, in 1974. They moved to Sedona in the late 1970s and owned Dude’s nightclub where the Coffee Pot Restaurant is now located. She revived her nightclub act and performed regularly.
The couple later moved to Santa Maria, Calif., where Peoples died in 1999.
Russell was a founder of the Hollywood Christian Group for actors in Hollywood, Calif., and was a major supporter of the Republican Party.
Russell’s health had begun to decline in recent weeks, according to her daughter. Russell is survived by three children, six grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
