Rosalind Russell was a stage and film actress best known for her performances in classic
films such as His Girl Friday and Gypsy.
Although the actress worked hard and stayed positive, she suffered a number of health
issues that made life a struggle.
Rosalind persevered to her final days despite these health troubles and was survived in
life by her loving husband and son.
Join Facts Verse as Rosalind Russell’s son reveals details about her personal life.
Rosalind Russell was born on June 4, 1907, in the city of Waterbury, Connecticut.
Perhaps due to the fact that her family was Irish Catholic, Rosalind found herself the
middle child of several siblings.
Rosalind’s parents had seven children altogether, with Rosalind placed right in the middle.
The young girl liked to refer to herself as the ham in her family sandwich and loved making
her siblings laugh.
The Russell family was a wealthy and happy one, and Rosalind always liked to recall in
her adult years how her parents would take her and her siblings on fun excursions such
as horseback rides, country fairs, and skating trips when they were growing up.
Rosalind’s father was both the director of a bank and a practicing lawyer, giving
him plenty of money to provide for his seven children.
Rosalind’s easygoing childhood gave her plenty of time to goof around, and it was
during these times that the young woman practiced making her six siblings laugh.
By the time she came of age, Rosalind had gotten the idea that she wanted to become
a performer in some professional capacity.
For advanced schooling, Rosalind attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New
York City before eventually graduating and trying her hand at the city’s theater scene.
The burgeoning star first appeared on the scene towards the end of the 1920s.
In the year 1930, she made her official Broadway debut in the Garrick Gaieties.
As Rosalind’s success on the New York City stage began to increase, so too did her opportunities
elsewhere.
Rosalind started catching the eye of Hollywood producers early on in her stage career and
was finally swept up by fledgling studio Universal Pictures in 1934, marking her arrival in Hollywood.
Rosalind Russell was excited for the opportunity to come to Hollywood, even though Universal
Pictures wasn’t a very big deal in the industry at the time period.
Sadly, the studio didn’t end up finding much to do with the actress.
According to the late Rosalind, most of her time with the studio was spent reading as
a stand-in with men auditioning for roles alongside other actresses.
The struggling actress began to think that she was never going to make it in Hollywood.
However, she wasn’t quite ready to give up on her dream!
Without letting her handlers at Universal Pictures know, Rosalind went to screen test
in secret with the much more prominent studio MGM.
Given her innate talent, Rosalind’s screen test with MGM went incredibly well!
The actress was subsequently offered a contract with the studio but found herself at an impasse
thanks to her contract with Universal Pictures.
Intent on finding her way to MGM, Rosalind decided she’d find a way to get out of her
earlier contract.
Rosalind Russell came up with a fairly ingenious scheme for getting out of her contract with
Universal Pictures, and it involved giving herself a decidedly unattractive makeover
just before going into a meeting with the studio’s head.
Rosalind did herself up to look much more ugly than she really was, and the studio head
let her go without question when she brought up the fact that she was dissatisfied with
her contract.
Having successfully pulled one over on the executive, the beautiful actress was free
to go to MGM!
According to both fans and Rosalind herself, the actress did the majority of her best work
while she was working with MGM.
The actress recalled how impressed she was when she first showed up at the studio, which
was one of the preeminent production companies in the industry at the time.
One of the things that impressed Rosalind the most was that the studio’s biggest movie
stars had entourages following them around carrying personal portable toilets!
While Rosalind would never quite grow to be one of the studio’s biggest stars herself,
she would become a sturdy player in the production company’s arsenal.
Despite the success that Rosalind was finding professionally, she would soon become plagued
with personal troubles.
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According to the late Rosalind Russell herself, the main reason that she never grew to be
quite as big of a star as she arguably deserved to be was because she wasn’t willing to
play studio politics.
While other stars were canoodling with studio executives in an effort to get big parts,
Rosalind was content playing cards with crewmembers.
She also preferred to keep her private life out of the tabloids as much as possible, meaning
that potentially attention-grabbing celebrity romances with such stars as Jimmy Stewart
were out of bounds when it came to PR stories involving Rosalind.
Despite the fact that Rosalind found herself rather unwilling to play ball when it came
to rising through the ranks at MGM, her talent and work ethic still made her a reliable player
at the studio during her time there.
She was seen as a reliable replacement when bigger star Myrna Loy wasn’t prepared to
take on a role, and she often found herself cast in films alongside the likes of such
female stars as Joan Crawford and Jean Harlow, often as romantic competition.
Though Rosalind was often poised as competition for Jean Harlow on the screen, the two carried
on an incredibly amicable relationship in real life.
When Jean Harlow went on to die at the tragically young age of only 26, it further illustrated
to Rosalind that Hollywood superstardom wasn’t for her.
According to the late Rosalind Russell, she spent a lot of time during the final years
of Jean Harlow’s life going to bars and trying to rescue the star from her increasing
life of squalor.
Sadly, Rosalind’s efforts didn’t end up proving too effective.
Besides Jean Harlow, another star that Rosalind ended up becoming pretty close with around
the time was Frank Sinatra, who took kindly to both Rosalind and her husband.
Rosalind and her husband, who was a producer by the name of Fredrick Brisson, spent a lot
of time vacationing at Frank Sinatra’s guest house together during their lives.
Rosalind Russell met her husband Fredrick Brisson while she was filming the motion picture
His Girl Friday with star Cary Grant in 1939.
Frederick Brisson was staying with Cary as a house guest, and Cary agreed to set the
producer up with his female costar.
When she was invited out to dinner, Rosalind initially thought that she was going on a
date with Cary Grant.
When she got to the restaurant and realized that she was being set up with another man,
she was initially hesitant to pursue a relationship with Frederick.
Despite the fact that Rosalind Russell was initially hesitant to pursue a romantic relationship
with Fredrick Brisson, the producer remained adamant in his pursuits and the actress was
eventually won over.
The two ended up tying the knot in 1941 and would remain together until Rosalind’s death
over three decades later, in 1976.
A year after their official union, the two welcomed a son by the name of Lance.
The release of His Girl Friday in 1940 proved to be the start of the most successful period
of Rosalind’s career.
The actress enjoyed an immense amount of success on the screen over the course of the ensuing
decade and continued working successfully in the following decades leading up to her
death.
However, the actress’s career success during the 1940s came with a dark side, as Rosalind
became overwhelmed during this period and suffered from a nervous breakdown.
The nervous breakdown was exacerbated by factors unrelated to Rosalind’s Hollywood career,
including postpartum depression after the birth of her son Lance and husband Freddie
leaving for a time to serve in World War II.
While Rosalind Russell wasn’t having the easiest time mentally during the 1940s, she
pushed through her nervous breakdown and came out the other end.
One of the things that helped her keep her sanity during the time period was taking her
son, Lance out to Dodgers games.
Although Rosalind managed to persevere through her nervous breakdown during the 1940s, that
sadly wouldn’t be the last of the actress’s many personal struggles that she was forced
to deal with during the latter half of her life.
In the 1960s, Rosalind was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She had to undergo two mastectomies over the course of the decade, with one occurring in
1965 and the other occurring in 1969.
In addition to breast cancer, Rosalind also began suffering from rheumatoid arthritis.
When it came time for her to begin writing the memoir Life is a Banquet, Rosalind eschewed
any mention of rheumatoid arthritis in exchange for focusing purely on her struggles with
breast cancer.
When asked why she did so, the late star claimed that one illness was more than enough for
a single book.
Rosalind spent her final days editing the memoir, which was released in 1977.
Rosalind herself passed away in 1976 and was survived by her husband and son.
Lance is still alive today and loves reminiscing about good times with his mom and her fighting
spirit.
Meanwhile, the arthritis research center at San Francisco’s University of California
is named after her.
Although Rosalind Russell never became quite as big of a star as some more well-known actresses
from the time period, she did plenty of great work and stands as a rare beacon of positivity
in Hollywood’s history.
Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that Rosalind Russell pretended to be
ugly in order to fake her way out of her first Hollywood contract and that the arthritis
research center at San Francisco’s University of California is named after her?
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