The Pittsburgh Press (February 17, 1946)
Movie fans soon will see screen’s famous unknown
After five years of fanfare, Jane Russell will be seen on the screen
By Erskine Russell
HOLLYWOOD (Feb. 16) – We took Jane Russell to the movies yesterday.
It was quite a novelty because the girl starring in the picture on the screen, “Young Widow,” was Jane Russell, the girl who has not been appearing in motion pictures for the last five years.
Producer Hunt Stromberg gave us a private projection room at the studio because the picture will not be released until March. Jane’s husband, Bob Waterfield, the big professional football star, came along. He hadn’t seen her on the screen either.
But despite the greatest disappearing act in the history of the movies, there are few people who don’t know Jane Russell. She has been in the Hollywood headlines for five years. Her photographs have gone around the world. She has fought with her boss, Howard Hughes. She has “retired” from the screen to be with her husband when he was in the Army at Fort Benning, Georgia.
‘The Outlaw’
Jane Russell, in fact, has done everything a motion picture star is expected to do except appear in a motion picture. There was “The Outlaw,” of course, but you almost can’t count that. It opened at one theater in San Francisco in 1941, played three weeks, and was withdrawn because of censorship trouble. Hughes has kept the film locked up in a fireproof steel vault ever since, plans to release it this spring with a couple of minor deletions.
But now we can positively report we have seen Jane Russell on the screen. Hughes lent her to producer Hunt Stromberg last summer for “Young Widow,” which is now ready for United Artists release.
It is a very good movie – the story of a girl whose husband is killed in a bomber over Berlin and her readjustment to life without him. The accent, however, is on comedy from Jane’s roommates, Marie Wilson and Penny Singleton. There can be no criticism of Jane’s acting. It is believable. Months of study with dramatic coaches are about to pay big dividends.
Jane has a million-dollar smile, and figure. Now that she can act there’s no doubt that she will become one of the screen’s box-office stars with Stromberg introducing her as “the world’s most exciting brunet.”
Oral commentary
She wears her hair both up and down in scenes for the picture.
When it was up, she whispered, “I look like a skinned cat.”
When it was down, she said: “Ye Gads – it looks like I’ve got enough hair for two girls.”
When she appeared in a bathing suit, she said, “Holy Criminy!” so loud that Waterfield said, “Quiet, please.”