How was Rosalind Russell’s Confidence Damaged by the Studios?

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  • Опубліковано 15 лис 2024

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  • @AgeOfVintage
    @AgeOfVintage  2 роки тому +2

    Thank you all for watching the videos and a HUGE THANK YOU for those who support the channel on Patreon. Just as little as $5 a month helps the channel tremendously!!!
    click here: www.patreon.com/ageofvintage
    Thank you! 🙂

    • @MsAppassionata
      @MsAppassionata 2 роки тому

      I love that you showed a scene with her and Robert Donat from the film “The Citadel” at 00:31 and 12:33. Donat is one of my favorite actors. Could you possibly do a bio of him in the future?

    • @AgeOfVintage
      @AgeOfVintage  2 роки тому +1

      I'll put it on my list 🙂 Thank you for the suggestion!

  • @edbarker8636
    @edbarker8636 2 роки тому +9

    Anything that Miss Rosalind Russell was in I can always watch she was just absolutely phenomenal she could do anything

  • @oldstrawhat4193
    @oldstrawhat4193 2 роки тому +2

    I absolutely LOVED her in "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows". She was both hilarious and touching in that film.

  • @jons.6216
    @jons.6216 2 роки тому +16

    Auntie Mame was definitely her role as she played it more than 600 times on Broadway! I also loved her dry wit played to perfection in the two movies playing the Reverend Mother of the St Francis Academy for Girls.

  • @MarvinJBush
    @MarvinJBush 2 роки тому +14

    I think that Rosalind Russell will always be remembered for her role in "His Girl Friday", a great role and an even more stunning performance.

  • @davidboring1771
    @davidboring1771 2 роки тому +4

    As an actress in the '40s & '50s Miss Russell is one of my BEST of them all. Most natural person of all

  • @ianmcculloch8531
    @ianmcculloch8531 2 роки тому +6

    As soon as I saw this video come up on my feed, I instantly pictured Aunt Mame with one eye permanently closed and a very long elegant cigarette holder. I was a teenager when that movie was released, and all of my friends and I thoroughly enjoyed her acting in that role.

  • @realong2506
    @realong2506 2 роки тому +8

    Rosalind Russel is one of the favorite actresses. From Auntie Mame to the Women, Sister Kenney and The Trouble with Angels she always threw herself into any role but never seemed unreachable or aloof. They don't make them like her anymore.

  • @anthonysummers3446
    @anthonysummers3446 2 роки тому +4

    A grand tribute to a Grande Dame.

  • @slomo1716
    @slomo1716 2 роки тому +4

    Beautiful, stunning and talented Actress! I've loved every movie she was in!

  • @MyDarkmarc
    @MyDarkmarc 2 роки тому +4

    Rosalind Russell's screen image was that of the "career woman" who scorns men's money to forge her own path to success. Many actresses turned up as the head honcho, but the one above all who typifies the style is Rosalind Russell. Russell did not fade after her first decade in Hollywood, in fact she had two of her biggest hits during the 1950's. And when Russell was getting advanced in years, the question was not, "isn't she dead? but "why isn't she doing more?" Russell had one of the longest sustained careers in Hollywood, for Russell had a secret weapon: the Broadway stage.
    Russell started in theater but before she could establish herself she left for Hollywood, she had signed a contract with Universal Pictures but then was offered a contract with the "Cadillac" of the industry which was at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM's slogan was they had, "More stars than there are in heaven!" So, she was out at Universal and in at MGM. Russell was first given small parts in good films, where she got the chance to learn the business. She spoke well, held herself majestically and firmly, so MGM gave her many of what she termed "Lady Mary" roles, with lines like, "How can you spend time with HER? She's rahther vulgar, isn't she?" MGM used Russell as a pawn to hold Myrna Loy in check. It was a typical studio trick: keep the reigning diva obedient by threatening her with a new diva-to-be.
    From 1934 through 1939 MGM kept Russell busy growing in knowledge and experience but she could not achieve full-fledged stardom, though she was superb in two films that are more popular today then when they were released: Craig's Wife (1936, Columbia Pictures) and Night Must Fall (1937, MGM). The first was a woman more in love with her house and possessions then her husband John Boles, while in the other film her costar Robert Montgomery plays the genial axe murderer that she falls in love with. This was not what the public wanted, give them star making roles and fashion, Russell finally got the opportunity to do just that. The Woman (1939, MGM), for the part of Sylvia Fowler the acid-tongue snake-in-the-grass gossip from Park Avenue, Russell had to perform the role in an exaggerated comic delivery, lines spun out of her in rapid fire succession almost like a machine gun and with her hands flapping, pointing and grabbing. Russell played the role as broad "as a barn door" otherwise she would have been taken as a villain in the film. The film was a dynamite success with Russell receiving most of the praise from the critics and the public alike. Now she was able to jump from contract-player to major star and Russell never looked back. Her next role cemented her new position in Hollywood, His Girl Friday (1940, Columbia Pictures). This was a reworking of the play and film The Front Page (1931, United Artists), now with one of the characters a woman instead of a man. Russell's character of Hildy Johnson is more like a man in some ways starting with her wardrobe her pin-striped suits, striding through the newspaper's city room like she was born to it. Screwball comedy was fast and wild and dark too. Howard Hawks directed, goading his stars (Rosalind's costar was Gary Grant), into one ups-man ship by creating a charade, overlapping their lines and battling in jest.
    But now comes the tricky part how to transition from the 1930's to the 1940's. The new decade began with new stars that would define the 1940's heroines like Betty Grable and Judy Garland for musicals and for dramas Greer Garson and Lana Turner. The first thing Russell did was marry Frederick Brissom, son of Carl Brissom, a danish singer who appeared in a few minor musicals. It was a happy marriage, lifelong and Frederick soon became an agent then a Broadway producer, who was able to assist in his wife's career by giving her some momentum later on in her career.
    Russell was fine as the older awkward-with-the-boys sister in My Sister Eileen (1942, Columbia Pictures), in fact this was her first Best Actress Academy Award nomination but lost to Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver. In 1946 there was a film that Russell really wanted to make since she cared deeply about the real-life character that she would act as. This high risk venture was titled Sister Kenny (1946, RKO), the titled character was the Australian Bush nurse who pioneered a radical therapy for polio victims. This film was Russell's second Academy Award Nomination for Best Actress but she lost to Olivia de Havilland in To Each His Own (1946, Paramount Pictures).
    Then Russell was able land one of the classical roles in America's stage literature as Lavinia Mannon in the film version of Eugene O'Neill's, Mourning Becomes Electra (1947, RKO) costarring Raymond Massey, Michael Redgrave, and Katina Paxinou. The film was a valiant effort and the three-hour running time was later cut by an hour. But the reviews did mention that the film was as close to O'Neill as it could possibly be. This film was Russell's third Academy Award nomination but lost to her close and personal friend Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter (1947, RKO).
    By now Russell needed a hit film but she found one on Broadway not in Hollywood playing the older sister (as she did before) in a musical based on My Sister Eileen now called Wonderful Town. Leonard Bernstein composed the music, while Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the lyrics and had some stylish choreography by Donald Saddler. The original cast featured Rosalind Russell in the role of Ruth Sherwood, Edie Adams as Eileen Sherwood, and George Gaynes as Robert Baker. Carol Channing replaced Russell for the final 6 months of the run. Wonderful Town was produced by Robert Fryer, the original production premiered at the Winter Garden Theater on February 25, 1953, where it ran for 559 performances finally closing on July 3, 1954, while George Abbott served as the director of the show. Rosalind Russell proved adept in giving out with what musical/comedy theater takes - a solid star. One of Russell's standout numbers was "One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose A Man." sung with vigorous fatalism. Her man-hungry younger sister was played by Edie Adams also to great acclaim. Russell became the "Toast of Broadway" The screen image of Rosalind Russell's contagious spirit and spunk was so taken by drama critic Brooks Atkinson that he proposed her as a likely candidate for the Presidency of the United States, a not inappropriate accolade for the screen's favorite "career woman." In film after film, whether as a newspaper reporter, an insurance executive, a psychiatrist, or a college dean, Rosalind was the determined female bucking a man's world by using masculine tactics. All of this woman's rights proselytizing was accomplished by brittle screwball comedy panache and boundless efficient energy. Always in the last reel, however, the man-tailored suits and horn-rimmed glasses would be replaced by more feminine garb, just in time to give her that touch of sweet romance.
    Rosalind Russell was one of the last stars-in-the-making to be groomed by Irving Thalberg. She was initially thought of as a carbon-copy Myrna Loy and was to be insurance if Loy should rebel at studio policy. But before long, Rosalind proved herself to be on the same level as a comedienne as Loy was, and she went along her own individual merry way. Just as she began to hit her stride after seven years with Metro, she choose not to renew her contract. Whatever Rosalind's pretensions were to match Norma Shearer or Joan Crawford in the glamorous drama sweepstakes, MGM and the public preferred her a la The Women (MGM, 1939).
    During the 1940s, Rosalind made comedies such as The Feminine Touch (MGM, 1941) and Take a Letter, Darling (Paramount, 1942), or dramas Flight For Freedom where Russell plays a character loosely based on Amelia Earhart an aviatrix lost in the Pacific giving the Navy recourse to look for among Japanese held islands. Plus, the only Film Noir that Russell starred in The Velvet Touch where she plays a Broadway star of light comedies who wants to do serious plays like Hedda Gabler but her producer/lover (Leon Ames) has other ideas. Russell was quite effective as Valerie Stanton who's a Broadway superstar.
    Over the course of her career, Russell earned four Academy Award nominations for Best Actress: My Sister Eileen (1942); Sister Kenny (1946); Mourning Becomes Electra (1947); and the movie version of Auntie Mame (1958). She received a Special Academy Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1972, which came with an Oscar statuette.
    Perhaps Russell's most memorable performance was as the title role of the long-running stage hit Auntie Mame and the subsequent 1958 movie version, in which she played an eccentric aunt whose orphaned nephew comes to live with her. The play Auntie Mame opened at the Broadhurst Theater on October 31, 1956 and ran until closing on June 28, 1958, for a total of 639 performances. When asked with which role she was most closely identified, she replied that strangers who spotted her still called out, "Hey, Auntie Mame!" Rosalind continued to appear in movies through the mid-1950's and 1960s, including Picnic (Columbia, 1955), A Majority of One (Warner Brothers, 1961), Five Finger Exercise (Columbia,1962), Gypsy (Warner Brothers, 1962), and The Trouble with Angels (Columbia,1966) and its sequel Where Angels Go Trouble Follows (1968, Columbia).
    Russell was the logical choice for reprising her role as Auntie Mame when its Broadway musical adaptation Mame was set for production in 1966, but she declined for health reasons.Russell's two dearest friends in Hollywood were Irene Dunne and Loretta Young they all were members of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California. They were referred affectionately as, "The Three Nuns" since they liked starring in family films.
    In honor of Rosalind Russell's efforts the UCSF Arthritis Research Center in San Francisco currently bears her name.

  • @marthadwyer2856
    @marthadwyer2856 2 роки тому +4

    I think she was fantastic in everything she played. To me she was one of the best actors ever. RIP

  • @Omiwhatisa
    @Omiwhatisa 2 роки тому +10

    Loved her performance in THE WOMEN

    • @lauralutz4538
      @lauralutz4538 2 роки тому

      Wonderful movie!!

    • @Omiwhatisa
      @Omiwhatisa 2 роки тому +1

      @@lauralutz4538 I’d love to write the stage script.

    • @Omiwhatisa
      @Omiwhatisa Рік тому +1

      If you’re serious I’d love to talk.

    • @lauralutz4538
      @lauralutz4538 Рік тому

      @@Omiwhatisa I have no idea about scripts or staging but she was gregarious & was excellent in any role she played to the extent that one couldn’t imagine anyone else in the part! Auntie Mame remake with, Lucille Ball, is a point in fact!

  • @edbarker8636
    @edbarker8636 2 роки тому +4

    Roslyn Russell Claudette Colbert were among the great actresses of that era I absolutely love them both and it's a sad world without them

  • @dtylice
    @dtylice 2 роки тому +2

    A portrait of RR hangs in one of the campus buildings at San Francisco General Hospital, a tribute to her generous endowment.

  • @edbarker8636
    @edbarker8636 2 роки тому +5

    Roslyn Russell was absolutely fabulous she was beautiful she was sexy she was funny she had it all

  • @richardm239
    @richardm239 Рік тому +1

    ONE OF THE GREATS ,HER VERBAL DEXTERITY WAS BEYOND AMAZING ,SHE JUST GOT BETTER WITH AGE ,BEAUTIFUL ELEGANT AND SO TALENTED !!!!!!!!!! SHE REALLY HAD RANGE AS AN ACTOR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE HER

  • @Pattiepies55
    @Pattiepies55 2 роки тому +3

    Auntie Mame ... Superb ❣️

  • @michaelmcgee8543
    @michaelmcgee8543 2 роки тому +2

    She was a great actress.

  • @janedoe1790
    @janedoe1790 2 роки тому +1

    Night must fall was a great movie. 🌻🐝✨💛💛💛💛

  • @anibalfernando3027
    @anibalfernando3027 2 роки тому

    Majority of One ...with Alec Guinness, and Auntie Mame..my favourites movies of this WONDERFUL actress.

  • @vintagebabyseventythree6244
    @vintagebabyseventythree6244 2 роки тому

    Auntie Mame. My favourite ❤
    The Trouble with Angels. Close second

  • @deandixon7994
    @deandixon7994 Рік тому +1

    Rosalind Russell is one of my favorite actresses from the era. She is one of the greatest comedy actors ever. My two favorite films was "His Girl Friday" and "The Women"

  • @donaldmiller18
    @donaldmiller18 2 роки тому +3

    Rosalind Russell was by far the classiest actress of the golden Hollywood era.

    • @alancrisp1582
      @alancrisp1582 2 роки тому

      🤔 That's a very big and bold statement to make, if ever I heard one ..............

  • @candiceyoung8244
    @candiceyoung8244 2 роки тому +1

    Shes a favorite of mine. Fantastic actress

  • @hollisbernstein3320
    @hollisbernstein3320 2 роки тому +1

    No mention of her powerful performance in 'Picnic'.

  • @guyindiman8701
    @guyindiman8701 2 роки тому +2

    You completely overlooked her fine dramatic performance in Emlyn Williams' suspense thriller "Night Must Fall" in 1937. Robert Montgomery played a psychopathic murderer and she is forced to deal with him.

    • @deb7518
      @deb7518 Рік тому

      She WAS really good in that! (Night must fall!)

  • @ericmartin9296
    @ericmartin9296 2 роки тому +1

    I haven't seen all of her movies but love her as Mama Rose in Gypsy

    • @belindabaker9240
      @belindabaker9240 2 роки тому +1

      If you haven’t seen them already you might like his girl Friday with Cary Grant and her hilarious turn in The Women

    • @ericmartin9296
      @ericmartin9296 2 роки тому

      @@belindabaker9240 - Thanks I watch a lot of Turner Classic Movies I will keep an eye out for her

  • @MiaHessMusic
    @MiaHessMusic 2 роки тому +1

    Love RR. I have her autograph!!

  • @peterdevita6308
    @peterdevita6308 2 роки тому +1

    It's shocking that Rosalind Russell never did win an Oscar especially losing for MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA in 1947.

  • @lindafurr2404
    @lindafurr2404 2 роки тому +1

    Unlike most Hollywood celebrities Rosalind Russell was married one time to Frederick Brisson until he died.

  • @eleanordefreitas979
    @eleanordefreitas979 Рік тому +1

    I thought she was the most hilarious actress ever.

  • @jeraldbaxter3532
    @jeraldbaxter3532 Рік тому

    There is something about Rosalind Russell and the English actress, Penelope Keith, that reminds me of each other. I think that it is the quality, which Richard Bridge said about Keith, of "natural authority".

  • @edbarker8636
    @edbarker8636 2 роки тому +2

    When we lost Rosalind Russell the world became a darker place

  • @bluesquirrel3919
    @bluesquirrel3919 Рік тому

    Isn't the picture on the right of thumbnail Jane Russell, and Rosalind on the left?

  • @paul8926
    @paul8926 2 роки тому +2

    I thought Rosalind Russell was brilliant in “Picnic”

    • @marthadwyer2856
      @marthadwyer2856 2 роки тому +1

      I agree with you. Great performances by Ms Russell always.

  • @marijooneill8015
    @marijooneill8015 Рік тому +1

    I thought she was great at everything she did I gave seen all of her movies and I think she was great in all if them

  • @ubza2004
    @ubza2004 2 роки тому +1

    The picture on the right of your thumbnail is Jane Russell not Rosalind Russell

    • @terr777
      @terr777 Рік тому

      Thanks for saying it for me!

  • @elligilberg1564
    @elligilberg1564 Рік тому

    Confusing to see the image of Jane Russell next to Rosalind Russell.

  • @jimrick6632
    @jimrick6632 2 роки тому

    VERSATILE LADY...."PICNIC" AND "AUNTIE MAME" SHOW HER VERSATILITY....MISS HER....

  • @MothGirl007
    @MothGirl007 2 роки тому +1

    Why do you have a photo of Jane Russell in the thumbnail?

  • @rosemariemartin1361
    @rosemariemartin1361 2 роки тому +1

    I loved auntie mame

  • @adamodeo9320
    @adamodeo9320 Рік тому

    why do you have Jane Russell's pic in front?

  • @roderickfernandez5382
    @roderickfernandez5382 2 роки тому +1

    Why does this man always I mean always mix up the pictures they're never in in sequence the thirties picture of 50s picture a statement about Hillary Johnson but a picture from something else and the hills and Johnson pictured just stuck in some place I wish you would get his act together. Now that that diet tribe is over Roslyn Russell was a wonderful actress I mean you can never think of anybody else being Auntie Mane she was Aunty name and she was Sylvia Fowler but she did a lot of dramatic work which this gentleman did not seem to take into account. She was a classy lady. Unfortunately her portrayal of Mama Rose in Gypsy was not very good. I don't know what it was I think it probably not having the ability to be hard I'm not very nice. There was only one real gypsy and that was Ethel Merman because she could be exactly what was needed for that role need I say more. And all my love to Miss Russell

  • @L4sleeko
    @L4sleeko Рік тому

    Mrs. Prowler 😏

  • @kellypilon2422
    @kellypilon2422 2 роки тому

    Night Must Fall was a one of the most suspenseful movies I have ever seen. Craig's Wife was good but Joan Crawford made it all about her in Harriet Craig. She was too overwrought in Mourning Becomes Electra. She was wonderful in The Women, Auntie Make, less so in Gypsy.