Queen Roz: Rosalind Russell’s Wit and Wisdom
old hollywood memoirs
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A character actress trapped in a leading lady’s body, Rosalind Russell had a charmed and charming life—as captured in her delightful memoir, ‘Life Is a Banquet.’
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Vanity Fair
“For a long time I didn’t want to write a book. I had my reasons,” writes Rosalind Russell in the opening lines of her delightful 1977 memoir, Life Is a Banquet.

The legendary star of His Girl Friday, Auntie Mame and Gypsy had three, to be exact. One: she only had one husband of thirty-five years, and one son (“Thirty five years?” she joked, “And she calls herself a movie star?”). Two: she had no patrician roots to brag about. And three? Super-agent Swifty Lazar “told me my life simply wasn’t interesting enough to write about. Too normal, he said.”

But Lazar was wrong. In this breezy bouquet of an autobiography, Russell—a character actress trapped in a leading lady’s body—illustrates why everyone in golden-age Hollywood loved Roz. “Rosalind was a life affirmer, a fighter,” her husband Freddie Brisson writes in the preface. “Like Scaramouche, she had been born ‘with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad.’”

A Charmed Childhood

Catherine Rosalind Russell was born in 1907, in Waterbury, Connecticut. Her family was Irish Catholic and she was one of seven children. “I’m the middle one, the ham in the sandwich,” Russell writes.

It was a remarkably happy childhood. “Everything with the Russells was a celebration,” she recalls. There were riding excursions, skating trips, visits to country fairs, and boisterous billiards games in the family’s upstairs playroom. Russell’s mother was mirthful and energetic. Her solicitous, old-fashioned father (a lawyer and bank director) was a true New England eccentric, insisting the family travel in a horse-drawn surrey long after cars took over the streets of Waterbury. Russell writes:

My father always walked home from his office (the better to talk to the street cleaner, I supposed); he’d stand in front of the great big glass doors…and we’d all run to meet him…and he’d hug and kiss us. While he was greeting my older brothers James and John, and my sister Clara, I would jump up and down and squeal “Look at me! Look at me!” and cross my eyes.

Talkative and tireless, Russell was forever on the go, racing to dances in her old jalopy Thunderbolt, or splashing perfume and whisky on herself to convince her sister Clara (later fashion editor at Town and Country) that she was drunk. “I never minded being a clown,” she writes. “Clowns make people laugh, and that’s something I loved to do.”

Nobody’s Fool

Intent on becoming a professional ham, Russell graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before bursting onto the New York theatrical scene in 1929. Using her wits, drive, and an occasional fib or two, she was soon treading the boards in theatrical productions across the Northeast. In 1934, Universal signed her to a contract, making her Hollywood bound.

But Russell was quickly disillusioned at second-rate Universal, where she spent her first days sitting off-camera reading with potential male co-stars for Claudette Colbert. She secretly tested at MGM, and was a smash. “I never acted so well in my life, before or since, and I was offered a contract, which went a long way towards soothing my damaged pride,” she writes.

But now Russell had a problem: how to get out of her Universal contract without incurring the studio’s wrath. Aware that Carl Laemmle Jr., Universal’s head of production, had a penchant for beautiful women, Russell and a girlfriend hatched a plan. In preparation for her first meeting with him, Russell transformed herself into a tired tramp. “We smeared traces of mascara under my eyes, my lipstick was runny, and we painted a little of it on my front teeth. Even my white gloves were weary,” she writes.

Though she was “nervous as a cricket,” Russell committed to her performance. “When I was called into Mr. Laemmle’s presence, I slumped on the couch. Mr. Laemmle tried not to stare at me,” she writes. As a befuddled Laemmle told her Universal’s plans for her, Russell cut him off:

“Well,” I said. “I’m just very unhappy here.” I kept it nasal, barely opening my mouth…a few more lonesomes and unhappys and references to my mother, and Laemmle breathed what had to be a sigh of relief. “Well,” he said, “If you feel that way, I guess we can let you go.”

Her termination papers in hand, Russell raced home, showered, and went straight to MGM. “It was lovely,” she writes. “It was the beginning of a different life.”

The Bachelor Girl

Russell was in awe of the glamorous stars of MGM and their expansive entourages—especially that of Billie Burke, best known as Glinda in The Wizard of Oz. “First you’d see an awful lot of dogs on leashes, and then the maid, and then the makeup man, and some guys carrying a big tray with a potty on it,” Russell writes. “A potty all covered in satin, and monogrammed, that impressed the hell out of me (on-set facilities stashed behind screens meant the stars didn’t have to run to their dressing rooms).”

However, Russell quickly realized she didn’t have the drive to become a screen goddess. “I wasn’t prepared to pay the price it would have required to get on the big Varsity,” she writes. She refused to play the Hollywood PR game, keeping her romances with the likes of Jimmy Stewart private, and preferring to play poker with crew members rather than hobnob with industry heavyweights.

Despite her independent ways (the press dubbed her the “bachelor girl”), Russell was quickly a reliable MGM second-tier star, often taking roles Myrna Loy turned down.

I was put into movies with Joan Crawford and Jean Harlow, and I was always taking their men away from them. Temporarily. It was ludicrous. There would be Jean, all alabaster skin and cleft chin…and I’d be saying disdainfully (and usually with an English accent, I played a lot of Lady Mary roles) to Gable or Bob Montgomery, ”How can you spend time with her? She’s rahter vulgar, isn’t she?”

Russell became particularly close to co-star Jean Harlow. According to Russell, the warm and friendly Harlow, without her make-up, “looked exactly like a little kid.” But Harlow also had a fighting spirit; Russell once noticed that a bear rug in Harlow’s home was missing half its teeth. When she asked what happened to the bear’s teeth, Harlow replied, “I kicked ‘em out.”

For Russell, Harlow’s tragic life—she died in 1937 at the age of 26—served as a cautionary tale on the perils of superstardom. “She was a sad girl, driven by her mother, madly in love with a man who wouldn’t marry her, and she spent the last nine months of her life drinking too much,” Russell writes. “I went to a lot of bars to try and get her out.”

Her Boy Friday

In 1939, Freddie Brisson, a Danish born, British educated talent manager, was traveling to the United States from Europe. According to Russell, the only film played on the entire journey was The Women, which featured her breakout comic role as the obnoxious, meddling socialite Sylvia. On repeated viewings, his initial annoyance turned to intrigue. “I’m either going to kill that girl,” he thought, per Russell, “or I’m going to marry her.”

When Brisson arrived in Los Angeles he became the houseguest of his good friend Cary Grant. He was titillated to discover that Grant was currently shooting the screwball classic His Girl Friday with Russell, and that the two frequently went dancing together. He begged Grant for an introduction, and at work Grant attempted to broach the subject with Russell in a less than suave way. According to Russell:

Every day he’d come to the set and say, “Do you know Freddie Brisson?” And I’d say “no—what is that, a sandwich?” And he’d say “No, no, this guy, Freddie Brisson”, and I’d say “You asked me that yesterday and the day before, something’s wrong with you.”

Finally, Grant took matters into his own hands.

One night he and I had a date to go dancing, and when I went to the door to let him in, he was standing there with another man. “Who the hell is this?” I thought, but I said, “Hi,” and Cary looked sheepish. “This,” he said, “is Freddie Brisson.” I invited them in for a drink…soon Cary and I were screaming and laughing, and every now and then I would turn to this character and say “Isn’t that so?” or “What do you think?” and he would just sort of smile.

For the next nine months, Brisson repeatedly called an uninterested Russell. “I’d bellow, so he could hear it, ‘Tell him I’m not home,’” she writes. Feeling sorry for him, Russell finally gave Brisson a chance. She was surprised to discover that far from being shy, he was warm, garrulous and gregarious.

But Russell wasn’t done playing hard-to-get. On the morning of their wedding in 1941, the nervous groom had a rude awakening. “I looked out my motel window and saw my bride-to-be marching up the road,” he writes in the preface to Life Is A Banquet. “I yelled out at her, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Running away,’ she said.”

Brisson coaxed her back to the motel, and the two were together for the rest of her life. “He acts as a secretary, sweetheart, dancing partner,” Russell writes. “He makes everything fun.”

Coco

With her admitted theatrical bent and eye for the absurd, Russell adored people who lived large, be they Hollywood stars or café society snobs. During the 1950s and ‘60s, Russell became a grande dame on Broadway, and Brisson a high-powered theatrical producer. They increasingly mingled with the world’s glitterati and counted as friends the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Gloria Guinness, and assorted presidential families.

But no one fascinated Russell more than Coco Chanel. In 1954, she convinced Brisson to pursue the life rights to the legendary designer’s story. “Here’s a woman who’s seventy-four…and instead of sitting in the shade with her cat, she’s finding new worlds to conquer,” she told her husband.

Though it would take 15 years, the musical Coco, staring Katharine Hepburn, would open on Broadway in 1969. In the meantime, Russell developed a friendship with the vocal and volatile Chanel, who talked faster and gesticulated more furiously than Russell. “I remember that a bracelet flew off her arm and she went right on talking, and the butler reached down, picked up the bracelet in a napkin, and Chanel held out her arm, while continuing to speak, and the butler put the bracelet back on.”

More than anything, Russell admired Chanel’s “consummate showmanship,” which was second to none. After a perfectly served lunch, Mademoiselle Chanel would always make sure to add a dramatic flourish. Russell writes:

While you were sipping demitasse, the head vendeuse would come in with a model and say to Chanel, “Mademoiselle, we cannot remember the way you wanted this scarf,” and Chanel would get up, adjust the scarf by giving it a kind of flip, then she’d pat the model on the behind…Old Roz knew it was all staged…but that was part of what was so wonderful about her.

The Innkeeper

“Most people need some work, some love, some friends,” Russell writes in Life’s A Banquet. “Frank Sinatra is a friend.”

Their special relationship began in 1940, when the young Sinatra, then singing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, introduced himself to Brisson and Russell during a show on Catalina Island. The couple frequently visited the generous but exacting Sinatra in Palm Springs, where he earned the nickname “the innkeeper” for his palatial party pad. “If you visit the innkeeper, you want for nothing,” Russell recalls. “He’s up early in the morning, tearing around, supervising everything.”

During one stay at Sinatra’s new Palm Springs guest house, Russell and Brisson decided to pretend to throw a party for everyone but their controlling host. As a lure, they hired two men to make a snowman that looked like Sinatra, which was built outside the guest house. Soon the party was in full swing, and there was a knock on the door:

Freddie opened the front door a crack, peered out at Frank, and slammed the door shut again. “You’re not invited,” he yelled. Frank skulked around for a while, looking through the windows, before we took pity on him. Most of what I remember about that night was the akvavit flowing, and my thinking, no one would ever believe how much we’ve laughed.

Perhaps this practical joke was payback for all the hassle that came from being one of Sinatra’s closest friends. “Promoters are forever calling me to get to Frank,” Russell writes. “I answer the phone in August, and it’s a man who wants to know if I’ll appear for a charity next December. After we settle that, he sneaks in the zinger. “And if you could get Frank Sinatra.”… “Listen,” I say finally, “nobody can promise Sinatra will show up any place. He doesn’t show up for his own weddings.”

The Miracle Woman

“If I could wave a magic wand and alter the past—or at least my character—I’d relax my tendency to push too hard, to be an extremist,” Russell laments.

Despite her regrets, this can-do spirit would serve Russell well. For much of her life, she was plagued by ill health. Her first bout with breast cancer led to mastectomies in 1960 and 1965. In 1969, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. (When Brisson asked why she barely mentioned it in Life’s A Banquet, she replied “one disease to a book is enough.”)

But Russell continued to thrive, earning the nickname “the miracle woman.” She was editing Life’s A Banquet until a few days before her death from cancer in 1976. “Flops are part of life’s menu,” she writes. “And I’m never a girl to miss out on any of the courses.”

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