Rosalind Russell, long one of the brightest stars of the American stage and screen, whose witty sophistication as Auntie Mame was a natural extension of Roz, the woman, died yesterday of cancer at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. The family gave her age as 63. A spokesman for the family said Miss Russell's husband, the producer Frederick Brisson, and their son, Lance, were with her. He said the actress’ long illness had been complicated by rheumatoid arthritis and that she had been in the hospital three months ago for surgery to replace her right hip joint.
Miss Russell was perhaps best known to the public for her long string of film roles as brassy, sassy, wisecracking career‐woman sophisticates, such as the star reporter in “His Girl Friday.” But comparatively late in her career, she became a major Broadway star in “Wonderful Town,” the musical version of one of her earlier movies, “My Sister Eileen,” and followed that triumph as the free‐spirited, free‐living Mame in “Auntie Mame.” Miss Russell said she liked to believe—and many people who knew her concurred in the belief—that Mame, the exuberant, fast‐talking eccentric, possessed a personality and outlook very much like Miss Russell's. That viewpoint was exultantly expressed by Mame/Rosalind at the end of the play's first act, when she spread wide her arms and proclaimed: “Live, live, live! Life is a banquet, and most of you poor sons‐of‐b****** are starving to death!”
Like Mame, Miss Russell seemed to be a whirling, swirling, constantly animated bundle of energy, always on the verge of being ignited. She refused to retire, until she was forced to do so by the effects of crippling arthritis over the last decade. Her Hollywood career, which began in the early 1930's, was a highly successful one, almost completely devoid of the usual tales of struggling‐young‐actress. finally‐makes‐good. After several straight dramatic roles, Miss Russell emerged as one of the films’ most expert comedians with her appearance, in 1939, in “The Women,” in which she played the vacuous and vicious —but extremely funny gossip—Sylvia Fowler.
She came to look upon that success with mixed feelings in later years, however, for it led to her being typecast. “By 1951,” she said, “I had grown weary of playing the eternal, successful career woman in films. I had played that role 23 times.”
From all accounts, Miss Russell's tireless energy went back to her childhood in Waterbury, Conn., where she was born. Her father, James Edward Russell, a successful trial lawyer who had worked his way up through the Yale Law School, and her mother, the former Clara McKnight, named Rosalind, the fourth of their seven children, after a steamship on which they had traveled to Nova Scotia on a wedding anniversary. Miss Russell was brought up in a pleasant, well‐staffed 13‐room Victorian house, and she attended a Roman Catholic academy before enrolling at Marymount College at Tarrytown, N. Y. Having been in her childhood an all‐round tomboy athlete, with several broken limbs to prove it, she was more interested in riding and other sports than in her studies at Marymount, where, in her sophomore year, the acting bug bit her. Playing the role of St. Francis of Assisi in a school play, Miss Russell was called upon to beat herself with thongs. “I got so carried away with the self‐flagellation that I drew blood on my legs,” she recalled years later. “Anyone that hammy bad to turn to acting.”
Leaving Marymount to enroll in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Miss Russell glibly assured her straitlaced mother that she would receive voice training at the New York acting academy that would qualify her to teach. After graduating In 1929, she worked in stock productions for $150 a week, and a year later made her Broadway debut in “Garrick's Gaieties.” In 1936, Miss Russell had her first hit in “Craig's Wife,” as Harriet Craig, the cold, domineering perfectionist housewife. More dramatic roles followed, notably that of the frightened spinster in “Night Must Fall” and the gentle schoolteacher in “The Citadel.”
George Cukor, noted as a “woman's director” in Hollywood, discerned a comedy streak in Miss Russell, and hired her for the 135‐woman cast of “The Women.”. The highlight of her performance was the now classic hair‐pulling, clothes‐ripping, leg‐biting fight scene with Paulette Goddard. Miss Russell was noticed in that film role particularly by Frederick Brisson, a Danish‐born theatrical agent who saw “The Women” on a ship crossing the Atlantic in 1939. In Hollywood, he was the house guest of Cary Grant, who was then co‐starring with Miss Russell in “His Girl Friday.” a remake of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's “The Front Page,” and Mr. Brisson asked to be introduced to the actress. Mr. Grant was best man at the couple's wedding in 1941. Miss Russell's heyday years in Hollywood were in the late 1930's and 40's. Among her successes were “No Time for Comedy,” “Take a Letter, Darling” and “My Sister Eileen.”
Her performance for the hit movie version. Mame, the madcap, middle‐aged terror of Beekman Place, had been created by Patrick Dennis, who made a fortune from his original novel, “Auntie Mame,” and died three weeks ago of cancer at his Park Avenue home at tho age of 55. When Mame came into Miss Russell's life, the actress was still soignee and elegant, appearing, as always, taller than she actually was (5 feet 7 inches). Being the toast of Broadway helped her movie career. She starred in Hollywood versions of the plays “Picnic,” “Gypsy,” “Five Finger Exercise” and “A Majority of One.” Miss Russell was particularly pleased to have been chosen by Joshua Logan for the role of the desperate schoolteacher in his movie version of William Inge's play “Picnic.”
She received several film industry awards for her performance in “Picnic,” but not an Academy Award, for which she had been nominated four times over the years. The actress's last professional appearance came in 1972, in a made‐for‐television movie called “The Crooked Hearts.” She appeared puffy about the face and body, a condition said to he a reaction from cortisone and other drugs used to aid her in her fight against arthritis.
A spokesman for the family said a requiem mass and a private service for family and friends would be conducted Wednesday at 11 A.M. at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Burial will be in Holy Cross Cemetery.
- Rosalind Russell
November 29, 1976, Page 57
The New York Times Archives
By ALBIN KREBS NOV. 29, 1976
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