She started her career as a fashion model and was in many
Broadway shows. In the early 1930s, she began to work for
MGM, where she starred in many comedies, such as
Forsaking All Others (1934) and
Four's a Crowd (1938), as well as dramas, including
Craig's Wife (1936) and
The Citadel (1938). In 1939, she was cast as a catty gossip in the all-female comedy
The Women, directed by
George Cukor.
She proved her quick-witted talent for comedy in the classic
screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), directed by
Howard Hawks. She played a quick-witted ace reporter who was also the ex-wife of her former newspaper editor (played by
Cary Grant).
In the 1940s, she continued to make both comedies such as
The Feminine Touch (1941) and
Take a Letter Darling (1942), dramas like
Sister Kenny (1946) and
Mourning Becomes Electra (1947), and a murder mystery
The Velvet Touch (1948).
Russell scored a big hit on Broadway with her
Tony Award-winning performance in
Wonderful Town in
1953. The play was a musical version of her successful film of a decade earlier,
My Sister Eileen. Russell reprised her starring role in the musical version in 1958 in a television special.
Russell returned to her native Waterbury for the world premiere of her movie
The Girl Rush at the State Theater on Aug. 18, 1955.
Probably her most memorable performance was in the title role of the long-running stage hit
Auntie Mame (1956) and the subsequent
movie version (1958), in which she played an eccentric aunt whose orphan nephew comes to live with her. When asked which role she was most closely identified with, she replied that strangers who spotted her still called out, "Hey, Auntie Mame!"
From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, she starred in a large number of movies, giving notable performances in
Picnic (1956),
Gypsy (1962) and
The Trouble with Angels (1966).
Russell was the logical choice for reprising her role as "Auntie Mame" when its Broadway musical adaptation
Mame was set for production in 1966. She claimed to have turned it down since she preferred to move on to different roles. In reality, she did not want to burden the public with her growing health problems, which included
rheumatoid arthritis.
Rosalind Russell has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1708 Vine Street.