Jane Russell,star of the 40s,dies at 89

Jane Russell,the Hollywood siren of the 1940s and 1950s,and star of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes alongside Marilyn Monroe,died at the age of 89. She died at her home in Santa Maria,California,of a respiratory-related illness,according to her daughter-in-law Etta Waterfield. The voluptuous pin-up girl shot to fame in 1943 after Howard Hughes,the eccentric billionaire,cast her in his controversial flick The Outlaw. The movie gained notoriety after censors held the film from general release in a dispute over Russell’s cleavage. Adverts for the film showed the star on a bale of hay with the tagline “How’d you like to tussle with Russell?” “Yes,Howard Hughes invented a bra for me. Or,he tried to. And one of the seamless ones,like they have now. He was ahead of his time. But I never wore it in The Outlaw. And he never knew. He wasn’t going to take my clothes off to check if I had,” said Russell. The film set the tone for a career in films that majored on her figure and talent for light comedy.