Catherine Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 – November 28, 1976) was an American actress, model, comedian, screenwriter, and singer,[2] known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), opposite Cary Grant, as well as for her portrayals of Mame Dennis in the 1956 stage and 1958 film adaptations of Auntie Mame, and Rose in Gypsy (1962).

In addition to her comedic roles, Russell was known for playing dramatic characters, often wealthy, dignified, and stylish women.

[4] Russell's career spanned from the 1930s to the 1970s and she attributed this longevity to the fact that, although she had many glamorous roles, she never became a sex symbol.

[9] Upon graduation from the performing arts school, Russell acted in summer stock and joined a repertory company in Boston.

Against parental objections, she took a job with a stock company for seven months at Saranac Lake, New York, and then Hartford, Connecticut.

When she first arrived on the lot, she was ignored by most of the crew and later told the press she felt terrible and humiliated at Universal, which affected her self-confidence.

One critic wrote: "Rosalind Russell as the 'other woman' in the story gives an intelligent and deft handling to her scenes with Young.

[13] In her first years in Hollywood, Russell was characterized, both in her personal life and film career, as a sophisticated "lady".

An impeccably dressed lady is always viewed with suspicion in real life and when you strut onto the screen with beautiful clothes and charming manners, the most naive of theatergoers senses immediately that you are in a position to do the hero no good.

First, because I want to improve my career and professional life and, secondly because I am tired of being a clothes horse – a sort of hothouse orchid in a stand of wild flowers.

In the film, a reworking of Ben Hecht's story The Front Page, Russell plays quick-witted ace reporter Hildy Johnson, who was also the ex-wife of her newspaper editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant).

Before her being cast, Howard Hawks had asked Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, Claudette Colbert, Jean Arthur, Margaret Sullavan, and Ginger Rogers if they would like to play the brash, fast-talking reporter in his film.

[citation needed] In the early 1940s, Russell starred in the rom-coms The Feminine Touch (1941) and Take a Letter, Darling (1942).

She won her second Golden Globe and got her third Academy Award nomination; she was highly favored to win, to the point that Russell actually began to rise from her seat just before the winner's name was called.

[citation needed] Perhaps her most memorable performance was in the title role of the long-running stage comedy Auntie Mame (based on a Patrick Dennis novel) as well as the 1958 film version, in which she played an eccentric aunt whose orphaned nephew comes to live with her.

When asked with which role she was most closely identified, she replied that strangers who spotted her still called out, "Hey, Auntie Mame!".

Her portrait and a description of her work hang in the lobby, as Congress made a grant in 1979 to establish the research center, in honor of her Congressional appointment to the National Commission on Arthritis.

Brisson had been traveling from England to the United States by ship in 1939, and The Women was playing on an endless loop during the voyage.

[25] Cary Grant then spent weeks greeting Russell each morning on set with the question "Have you met Freddie Brisson?"

Details are scant, but the book indicates that health problems and the deaths of a sister and a brother were major factors leading to her breakdown.