Mean... Moody... Magnificent! Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend

"I never was a sex symbol. Not in my head I wasn't." -- Jane Russell By the early 1950s, Jane Russell (1921--2011) should have been forgotten. Her career was launched on what is arguably the most notorious advertising campaign in cinema history when film goers were invited to watch The Outlaw (1943) and "tussle with Russell," or gawk at two of the reasons for her rise to stardom. Completed by mid-1941, the movie did not premiere until 1943, and its wide release was delayed, gradually rolling out between 1946 and 1950. Throughout the 1940s, Russell was nicknamed the "motionless picture actress" and would only have three films projected in theaters the entire decade. With such an inauspicious and prolonged start to a career, most aspiring actresses would have given up or faded away. But not Jane. Instead, she carved out a place for herself in Hollywood and became one of its most recognizable figures. In Mean...Moody...Magnificent!: Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend, author Christina Rice offers a fresh perspective on how Russell learned to embrace the blatant publicizing of her physical appearance. Looking beyond the signature image of Russell lounging on bales of hay while wielding a gun and her Playtex commercials, Rice details a not-so-charmed life impacted by abuse, abortion, infertility, divorce, adoption struggles, and death. While often overshadowed by Marilyn Monroe, her costar in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Russell led a life and career that was confident and unapologetic. Working alongside actors such as Robert Mitchum, Clark Gable, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope, she was more of a movie personality than a serious actress but could electrify a screen and was a true celebrity of the Golden Age. Despite a movie career that was stalled for nearly a decade, Russell's filmography was respectable, and she had the opportunity to work with some of Hollywood's most talented directors, including Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, and Josef von Sternberg. From her attempt to launch a musical career to her devout faith and weekly Bible study for Hollywood stars to her work in creating the WAIF foundation in 1955, an organization to place children with adoptive families, Mean...Moody...Magnificent! reveals Russell's full and fascinating life. In the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, Rice gives voice to Russell's empowered reactions to the controversies surrounding her films and her feelings about the marketing campaigns promoting her physical appearance. Mean... Moody...Magnificent! will be the first book-length work on this actress who brought a wry wit and intelligence to her characters with a unique take on the playful sex bomb. This work will appeal to film historians and buffs alike. This project is under consideration for UPK's Screen Classics series. Christina Rice is senior librarian and archivist at the Los Angeles Public Library. She is the author of Ann Dvorak: Hollywood's Forgotten Rebel (UPK).