Screen Classics #: Mean...Moody...Magnificent!

Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend

Screen Classics #: Mean...Moody...Magnificent!
Christina Rice
RRP:
NZ$ 71.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 68.39
Hardback
h229 x 152mm - 392pg
15 Jun 2021 US
International import eta 7-19 days
9780813181080
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
Jane Russell' s acting career was launched on one of the most notorious publicity campaigns in the history of cinema for The Outlaw, a film produced and ultimately directed by Howard Hughes. Russell should have quickly and quietly disappeared from public consciousness. Yet, she managed to use The Outlaw as a springboard for a noted entertainment career that found her starring opposite stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Robert Mitchum, Vincent Price, Frank Sinatra, and Groucho Marx. Ultimately, Russell herself would be elevated to the status of "film legend" during her lifetime. The book Mean Moody Magnificent: Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend explores Russell' s life and career and examines how she used a constant stream of provocative publicity to her advantage while somehow managing to elevate her public persona above that publicity. The book also explores how the highly sexualized marketing of Jane Russell the Movie Star conflicted with the off-screen Russell, a woman of strong religious faith who spent much of her life devoted to advocating for international adoption. Serving as a companion to Russell' s 1985 autobiography, Mean Moody Magnificent! is the first volume to explore the life and filmography of Jane Russell.

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"Whether readers are intimately familiar with the golden age of Hollywood, or are newcomers to the topic, they' ll come away having learned something about one of its stars. " -- Library Journal "Like many talented people, Jane Russell was a study in contrasts. . . . Christina Rice embraces these contradictions, taking the rough with the smooth as Russell herself did, and letting us judge for ourselves. Rice' s book reaches well beyond the narrow boundaries of the conventional star biography; a gutsy, full-blooded account of a life well-lived . . . and lived . . . and LIVED!" -- Stage and Cinema " Mean. . . Moody. . . Magnificent! Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend is a fascinating study of a complex Hollywood icon. As the movies' first full-figured sex symbol, Jane Russell starred in classic comedies, film noirs, musicals and Westerns opposite Bob Hope, Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe, and Clark Gable, but author Christina Rice reveals that her life off screen is even more interesting. Russell was a woman of deep Christian faith who struggled with alcoholism. After a back alley abortion left her unable to bear children, she led the fight to overturn restrictive laws that resulted in thousands of overseas orphans being adopted into American families. Rice adroitly navigates through these contradictions and more, including the creation and marketing of a screen bombshell by executives, artisans, publicists, and the press, and the tension between that image and the real woman behind the facade. This is a magnificent biography of the occasionally mean and moody, but always magnificent Jane Russell. " -- Andrew A. Erish, author of Vitagraph: America' s First Great Motion Picture Studio "Christina Rice has written an exceptional and thoroughly-researched biography that presents Jane Russell as a fully-formed human being and actress. As a Marilyn Monroe fan and biographer, I was enthralled by the chapters on their working relationship and friendship. It truly is a magnificent book, and one I' ll refer to time and time again. " -- Michelle Morgan, author of The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist "In the 1980s I was in the RKO Radio Pictures archives when Jane Russell was being interviewed for an RKO documentary. In 2010, I had the privilege is sitting with her for an entire day as she was interviewed for a documentary on photographer George Hurrell. Because Jane Russell' s story is unique, she has often been misrepresented. I' m happy that she has been accurately portrayed in Christina Rice' s biography. " -- Mark A. Vieira, author of George Hurrell' s Hollywood "Just when I thought I couldn' t enjoy a classic movie star bio more than Christina Rice' s book on Ann Dvorak, along she comes with this first-rate tome on Jane Russell. Impeccably researched and engagingly written, Rice' s latest is one of the better biographies I' ve read in some time. Her storytelling style grabs you from the opening chapter and never lets loose. " -- Karen Burroughs Hannsberry, author of Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir and Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film "The tumultuous life and career of Jane Russell is captured by author Christina Rice in an insightful biography of the legendary star who ultimately resisted her caricature as a buxom Tinseltown sex object. No detail is spared from Russell' s rustic San Fernando Valley childhood, discovery by the eccentric Howard Hughes and her subsequent stardom while enduring an abusive marriage and intermittent battles with the bottle. Through Rice' s detailed research and sure prose, the resolute Russell emerges as an empathetic woman of substance who ended up selling bras rather than burning them. An important chapter of Hollywood history, Mean. . . Moody. . . Magnificent! is the definitive Jane Russell story. " -- Alan K. Rode, author of Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film
Christina Rice is a librarian and photo archivist at the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles. (www. anndvorak. com)
Status: No local stock, title imported to order
ISBN-13: 9780813181080
Published: 15 Jun 2021
Published In: United States
Imprint: University Press of Kentucky
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Format: Hardback
Height: 229mm
Width: 152mm
Pages: 392

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