Roz
Rosalind Russell
Motion Pictures Category Star
- Ceremony was on February 8, 1960
Rosalind Russell
'AUNTIE MAME' WAS 63
Film Star Rosalind Russell Dies
From UPI and AP
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Rosalind Russell, who started her long acting career in a tent show and became the queen of sophisticated film comedy, died Sunday morning at her home after a long fight with cancer. She was 63.
Miss Russell, Roz to her friends, highlighted her career with her unforgettable portrayal of "Auntie Mame" on both the stage and screen. Mame, the brittle, charming protector of a precocious nephew, was her favorite role.
"I could have gone on playing Auntie Mame forever," she once told an interviewer.
Patrick Dennis, who wrote the semi-autobiographical book, died just three weeks earlier in New York City at the age of 55.
Miss Russell's illness was complicated by severe rheumatoid arthritis. Her husband, Fred Brisson, their son, Lance, and his wife, Patricia, were with her when she died.
She had been in the hospital three months ago for surgery to replace her right hip joint.
She was born June 4, 1913, in Waterbury, Conn., one of seven children of a distinguished trial lawyer, James Russell. She recalled that as a child she exhibited abnormal energy and a loud voice - "my mother complained that I was loud, but my father would counter that I was the only one he could understand at the dinner table."
She was nominated four times, but never won an Academy Award. But her fame grew along with the affection movie fans felt for her.
"I'm not afraid to gamble," she told a reporter several years ago. "That's what happens to most stars. Those actresses with great beauty - which I've never been blessed with - have a problem. They want absolute security...
"It's that way in life, too. But I've never depended on my looks."
She came closest to winning the coveted Oscar for her performance in "Mourning Becomes Electra," but the prize went to Loretta Young for "The Farmer's Daughter."
In later years she said she would only take comedy roles because they presented a challenge.
"It's not like the old days, when I played a career girl in 28 pictures," she said. "I've honestly decided that a top comedy performance is tougher than a dramatic role. Makes you use the brain muscles."
The fun-loving star was Hollywood's top bachelor girl until she eloped with Brisson, an actors' agent, in 1941. Their son was born in 1943.
Miss Russell's family requested that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Rosalind Russell Memorial Fund for a medical research center for cancer and arthritic diseases.
