Sometimes you need a lift, a pick-me-up, a happy place. For me, that happy place is often "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and my pick-me-up person is Jane Russell (although of course I love Marilyn as well).
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Why Jane?
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First, she is way funny. In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Paleface (with Bob Hope) you see a great Jane Russell. And not just on screen, I read her book and she is hilarious. You should read her describe the "underwire bra" that Howard Hughes designed for her for The Outlaw. She decided it was painful, unwieldy and didn't work, so she used her own bra and pulled down the bra straps (despite the great PR that Hughes brought with the original story).
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Second, Jane never took herself too seriously. I read her biography a long time ago (Jane Russell: My Path and My Detours) and I loved it. She is down to earth, has a very inclusive religious philosophy and was married for a long time to a Bruin.
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Third, Jane and her Bruin husband (Bob Waterfield) found Jane couldn't have kids, and so they adopted. But Jane didn't stop there. Russell herself was unable to have children and, in 1955, she founded World Adoption International Fund (WAIF), an organization to place children with adoptive families that pioneered adoptions from foreign countries by Americans. (see Wikipedia - in this case correct).
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Finally - at the bottom of this, is one of the all time camp classic movie songs. It was filmed for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on the ship that really was caring American athletes to the Olympic games in France. And, I believe, some of the extras (but not all) are Olympians - a placement that would never happen today.
Here are Jane and Marilyn relaxing on the set of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"
Glamour shot!
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It might be hard to believe this, but this story was about Billy The Kid. But there is no doubt who Howard Hughes was trying to make the star!
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BEST MOVIE SONG EVER (except maybe when Gene Wilder sings in the ship in Willy Wonka).
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