After losing his hands during his military service, Russell was cast in the epic drama film The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), which earned him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Harold Russell was born in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, and moved to Massachusetts, United States, with his family in 1921,[3] after his father's death in 1920.

[5] On June 6, 1944, while he was an Army instructor teaching demolition work with the U.S. 13th Airborne Division at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, a defective fuse detonated TNT explosives that he was handling.

''[6] The special award had been created because the board of governors wanted to salute Russell, a non-professional actor, but assumed that he had little chance for a competitive win.

[5] Speaking with the Los Angeles Times in 1996, Russell recalled: Wyler told me I should go back to college because there wasn't much call for a guy with no hands in the motion picture industry.

[11] As head of AMVETS, Russell wrote to President Truman in 1951 supporting his decision to dismiss General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.

Russell's telegram to Truman cited MacArthur's "repeated insubordination in violation of basic American principles governing civil versus military authority."

[17] On January 29, 2002, Russell died at a nursing home in Needham, Massachusetts[5][6] and was interred in Lakeview Cemetery in the nearby town of Wayland.