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The divine Rosalind Russell would be 100 years old today, if she were still alive and kicking (if only she were!).
She's long been one of my favorite actresses of the Thirties and Forties (and I've always suspected she'd have been a great friend to have, to boot), so I thought I'd share with you the following snippet from an appreciation of the woman and her career I read online this morning:
The Connecticut-bred lawyer’s daughter, the product of a scrupulous Catholic upbringing, was a tall, almost ungainly woman with a raspy contralto voice and plain, sensible features. Her no-nonsense appearance, which was smart and well-tailored without being austere, suggested both a practical outlook and a bemused sense of irony. No one would ever mistake her for an ingénue or a sex goddess - which probably suited Russell just fine. Never beautiful in the conventional sense, she could generate more heat with an arched eyebrow and a deadpan retort than any of the glamour girls could with smoldering looks and coy displays of their natural assets. She could be side-splittingly funny in films that tapped into the zanier side of her nature, but made surprisingly few comedies during her four decades as a cinema fixture. It’s a testament to the impact she had in the handful of films that allowed her to cut loose that she is remembered first and foremost as a comedienne....
You can read the rest here.
Happy birthday, Ms. Russell, wherever you are.
Posted by brett at 12:33 PM | TrackBack