Screen Guild Theater: Tell It to the Judge
Tell It to the Judge
Rosalind Russell,
Robert Cummings,
Clem Bevins,
Griff Barnett,
Gerald Mohr
Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 --
November 28,
1976) was an
American actress of stage and screen,[1] perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the
Howard Hawks screwball comedy
His Girl Friday, as well as the role of
Mame Dennis in the film
Auntie Mame. She won all five
Golden Globes for which she was nominated, and was tied with
Meryl Streep for wins until
2007 when
Streep was awarded a sixth.
Russell won a
Tony Award in
1953 for
Best Performance by an
Actress in a
Musical for her portrayal of
Ruth in the
Broadway show Wonderful Town (a musical based on the film
My Sister Eileen, in which she also starred).
Russell was known for playing character roles, exceptionally wealthy, dignified ladylike women, as well as for being one of the few actresses of her time who regularly played professional women, such as judges, reporters, and psychiatrists.[2] She had a wide career span from the
1930s to the
1970s and attributed her long career to the fact that, although usually playing classy and glamorous roles, she never became a sex
symbol, not being famous for her looks.[3]
Russell continued to display her talent for comedy in the classic screwball comedy His Girl Friday (
1940), directed by Howard Hawks
. In the film, a reworking of
Ben Hecht's story
The Front Page, Russell played quick-witted ace reporter Hildy
Johnson, who was also
the ex-wife of her newspaper editor
Walter Burns (
Cary Grant).
In the
1940s, she made comedies such as
The Feminine Touch (
1941) and
Take a Letter, Darling (
1942), dramas including
Sister Kenny (1946), and
Mourning Becomes Electra (
1947), and a murder mystery
The Velvet Touch (1948).
Over the course of her career, Russell earned four
Academy Award nominations for
Best Actress: My Sister Eileen (1942); Sister Kenny (1946); Mourning Becomes Electra (1947); and the movie version of Auntie Mame (
1958). She received a
Special Academy Award, the
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in
1972. The awarded trophy for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award is an
Oscar statuette.
Russell scored a big hit on
Broadway with her
Tony Award-winning performance in Wonderful Town (1953), a musical version of her successful film of a decade earlier, My Sister Eileen. Russell reprised her starring role for a 1958 television special.
Perhaps her most memorable performance was in the title role of the long-running stage hit Auntie Mame and the subsequent
1958 movie version, in which she played an eccentric aunt whose orphan nephew comes to live with her. When asked which role she was most closely identified with, she replied that strangers who spotted her still called out, "
Hey, Auntie Mame!" She received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a
Play in
1957 for her performance.
Patrick Dennis dedicated his second Auntie Mame book
Around the World with Auntie Mame to "the one and only Rosalind Russell" in 1958.
She continued to appear in movies through the mid-1960s, including
Picnic (
1955),
A Majority of One (
1961),
Five Finger Exercise (1962),
Gypsy (1962), and
The Trouble with Angels (1966).
Russell was the logical choice for reprising her role as Auntie Mame when its
Broadway musical adaptation Mame was set for production in 1966, but she declined for health reasons.
In addition to her acting career, Russell also wrote the story for the film
The Unguarded Moment, a story of sexual harassment, released in
1956, starring
Esther Williams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Russell