Actress Jane Russell, who became a star with the 1943 release of "The Outlaw," Howard Hughes' challenge to the Hollywood production code, has died. She was 89.
[Updated 3:47 p.m. Russell died today at her home in Santa Maria, said her son Buck Waterfield. He did not give the cause.]
Russell went on to play Calamity Jane opposite Bob Hope in "The Paleface" (1948), and she starred with Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 musical "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
As former Times staff writer Claudia Luther explains in her obituary of the actress, "Russell's provocative performance in 'The Outlaw' — and the studio publicity shots posing her in a low-cut blouse reclined on a stack of hay bales — marked a turning point in moviedom sexuality. She became a bona fide star and a favorite pinup girl of soldiers during World War II. Troops in Korea named two embattled hills in her honor. …
