Russell, Gail (1924–1961)

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Russell, Gail (1924–1961)

American actress. Born on September 21, 1924, in Chicago, Illinois; died on August 27, 1961, in Los Angeles, California; second child of George Russell (an auto bond salesman) and Gladys (Barnet) Russell; attended Santa Monica High School, Santa Monica, California; married Guy Madison (an actor), on August 31, 1949 (divorced 1954); no children.

Selected filmography:

Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour (1943); Lady in the Dark (1944); The Uninvited (1944); Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944); Salty O'Rourke (1945); The Unseen (1945); Duffy's Tavern (1945); Our Hearts Were Growing Up (1946); The Bachelor's Daughters (1946); Calcutta (1947); Angel and the Badman (1947); Variety Girl (1947); Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948); Moonrise (1948); Wake of the Red Witch (1948); Song of India (1949); El Paso (1949); The Great Dan Patch (1949); Captain China (1949); The Lawless (1950); Air Cadet (1951); Seven Men From Now (1956); The Tattered Dress (1957); No Place to Land (1958); The Silent Call (1961).

Gail Russell didn't long to be a movie star. A shy, introverted child who spent most of her time in her room and fled from guests, she dreamed of a career in art. When she turned into a stunning teenager, however, and caught the eye of a Paramount executive, her mother wangled a screen test. "Mother dragged me there," Russell said later. Without any training or visible talent, Russell was terrified, but her dark hair, blue eyes, and even features photographed beautifully and the studio saw great potential in her.

Paramount first cast Russell in the role of a high-school vamp in Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour (1943), which required little more than standing around looking pretty. During the shooting of her second film, Lady in the Dark (1944), she suffered a debilitating attack of stage fright, the first of many. "I would stand on the set with the director, actors and technicians surrounding me," she recalled later, "and I would panic. I could not remember a line or often even move." While her co-star Ginger Rogers cajoled her through her fears, Russell later turned to alcohol to numb the terror.

In The Uninvited (1944), Russell played Stella Meredith, a young woman at the mercy of a ghost bent on destroying her. The film, a smash hit (as was its theme song "Stella by Starlight"), catapulted Russell to stardom. She also scored a success portraying Cornelia Otis Skinner in Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944), an autobiographical account of Skinner's travel to Europe with her friend Emily Kimbrough (played by Diana Lynn ). Russell reprised the role in the sequel Our Hearts Were Growing Up in 1946. Also notable was Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948), co-starring Edward G. Robinson, made during the mid-point of Russell's career, at which time Hollywood was beginning to sense that she was in trouble. But the actress received her best reviews for the sleeper The Lawless (1950), in which she played a Mexican-American newspaper reporter who helps to free a young Mexican man wrongly accused of rape.

In 1949, Russell had married actor Guy Madison, although it was rumored that she was then involved romantically with John Wayne, her co-star in The Angel and the Badman (1947) and Wake of the Red Witch (1948). The marriage was a tumultuous union that ultimately ended in divorce in 1954. In the meantime, Russell's drinking increased, and by 1952 her movie career was at a standstill. In 1953, she was cited as correspondent in the divorce case brought by Esperanza Wayne against her husband John, an accusation which exacerbated the actress' alcoholism. Later that year, after a number of drunk-driving arrests, she entered a sanitarium in Seattle for treatment.

In 1955, following her divorce, Russell returned to the screen in Seven Men from Now, produced by John Wayne. She appeared in several subsequent films, the last of which, The Silent Call, was filmed early in 1961. In August of that year, after her neighbors had not seen her for several days, the actress was found dead in her apartment in Los Angeles, where she had lived for some time under the name of Mrs. Robert Moseley, Guy Madison's actual name. The cause of death was reported as acute and chronic alcoholism. "There was always a sense of pressure, no time to think or relax," Russell once said about her life as a movie star. "I just wanted to be alone to take stock, and it wasn't possible. Film work was just too demanding."