Jane Russell Profile

Jane Russell

	(Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell)
21 June 21	is born in Bemidji, Minnesota, at 6 a.m.
32	her family moves to Van Nuys, California
37	her father dies, and she takes a $10-a-week job as a chiropodist's receptionist
38	starts dating her high school sweetheart, Bob Waterfield, the star quarterback for the Cleveland Rams football team
40	enrolls at Max Reinhardt's Theatrical Workshop, but after one term switches to Maria Ouspenskaya's school, where she studies for six months
	Hughes signs her to a seven-year contract
41	Hughes refuses Zanuck's offer for her to play Dona Sol in Blood and Sand
24 April 43	elopes with Waterfield to Las Vegas, gets married, and follows her new husband, who is inducted into the Army, to Georgia
45	she and Waterfield return to California
15 February 52	the Waterfields adopt a newly born girl, Tracy
April 51	does an advertisement for Jergens Lotion
May 52	threatens to walk out on her RKO contract at the same time Bob Mitchum leaves
December 52	the Waterfields adopt a fifteen-month-old British boy, Tommy Kavanaugh
54	forms Russ-Field Productions with her husband
July 54	is so impressed by Dick Egan's performance with her in The Big Rainbow that she'd like to sign him as her leading man for her first independent Russ-Field picture
56	forms a production company with Clark Gable for Last Man On Wagon Mound, but Eleanor Parker plays in the finished film
	the Waterfields adopt a nine-month-old boy, Robert John
October 56	attends the fundraiser for President Eisenhower's reelection campaign, held at the Hollywood Bowl
September 57	avoids answering questions about the similarity of her The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown to the Marie MacDonald kidnapping
October 57	debuts with a solo act at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas and fulfills later engagements in Mexico, South America, Europe, Canada, and the U.S.A.
Summer 61	debuts with a tour of Janus in New England
Fall 61	plays in Skylark at the Drury Lane Theater, Chicago
November 62	plays in Bells are Ringing at the Westchester Town House, Yonkers, New York
63	is signed for MGM's Never Enough and Richard Condon's A Talent For Loving
2 February 67	files for divorce from Waterfield in Los Angeles
25 August 68	marries actor Roger W. Barrett in Beverly Hills. Both are 47.
17 November 68	Roger Barrett dies of a heart-attack
31 January 74	marries real estate man John Calvin Peoples in a "kaftan" ceremony in Santa Barbara, California. He's 49; she's 52.
91	the couple lives in Sedona, Arizona
99	becomes the widow of Peoples
28 February 11	dies at age 89 at her home in Santa Maria, California, of a respiratory-related illness
?	is cremated. Her ashes are scattered at sea.

Sources: The RKO Gals by J. R. Parrish, Silver Screen, Movie Story, The Hollywood Reporter, Motion Picture, Modern Screen, www.FindAGrave.com
Recommended Books: Jane Russell: My Path and My Detours by Jane Russell
Links: Filmography Denny Jackson's Jane Russell Page Brian's Drive-In Theater: Jane Russell