Hollywood Scandal Part 2: The Gravity-Defying Bra of Jane Russell and Howard Hughes

7:54PM Jun 10, 2022

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Are you ready for day number two of our Hollywood scandal? We will ready or not. Here we come with another riveting story from the Golden Age of Hollywood. I'm Alisha Rai.

And I'm Sara Wendell. Welcome to lovestruck daily, where we bring you scandalous true Hollywood stories every day this week. I'm in love with you I'm in love with you. All right, Alicia. Today we are taking a deep dive into a very specific story, but I need to share with you an image and I put it in the chat. Okay, this is a steal from the movie The Outlaw. Whoa, right. This was one of the most scandalous images of Jane Russell, would you maybe try to describe this image I'm going to share with you another one that was also used as a movie poster and still for this, but try to describe what is happening with this person in this hay bale.

Okay, so it's who I assume is Jane Russell.

That is indeed Jane Russell. Isn't she gorgeous?

Again? I do have like a block up against pop culture before the 80s

Well, there's only so much pop culture you can stuff inside your brain as I know Yeah.

And older pop culture especially American pop culture. I'm not really click here on clear on but this is Jane Russell. I can't tell if she's wearing a bra or not. But her boobs look amazing.

They are just astonishingly good. They're

like either a feat of engineering to make it look like she's not wearing a bra or, or she's not wearing a bra. And she is kind of splayed in a haystack like It looks like a romance novel cover. But without the dude like yeah, you know, standing over her mind. She's got a gun in her hand very suggestively on her lap and her her shoulders. Like, like sharply out. She looks gorgeous. Like she is gorgeous. I love her face. It's so interesting.

This is one half of a clinch cover, right? Yeah,

this is one half of a clinch cover and what she's like, I mean, she's beautiful. Her legs are amazing. Like her light. Her skirt is kind of like pushed up, you know, it's half of a clinch cover. Yeah,

so this image was so scandalous it was used to market this movie, because it was so outrageous to have a dress like that and her legs like that. And the gun and the hay and the pose right thing was super scandalous. And there were so many narratives spun out of that image about Shane Russell about the movie about Howard Hughes, who directed it and today we are going to welcome back our favourite Hollywood history Professor Jay Mahler che to talk us through the scandalous story of Howard Hughes and Miss Jane Russell. Now, I want to go to one of Professor Miller Shay's classes at West Virginia University now because He specialises in film and theatre history and he knows his stuff. But this is probably the next best thing. We are going to take a look at a really scandalous series of images and stories. Welcome back. Professor Miller Shea Yes, this scandal comes with custom bras, who was Howard Hughes, and who is Jane Russell.

He was a millionaire. He was a millionaire who fancied himself have a mobile studio head. He wanted to make movies. He was into early sort of adventure action movies, like Hells Angels, and things like that, which was about fliers in World War One. So he had a sense of adventure. And he built a Spruce Goose, which was a kind of a laughingstock, but it was actually he was kind of the Elon Musk of his time, if you want to look at it

that way. Yeah, that's not a bad comparison.

You know, whether he had a sexual relationship with Jane Russell, that's debated. I mean, that's how strange his relationship was.

He was just strange. Generally. He was a weird, weird person, right.

And especially his later years, has OCD and everything. And he was just an, you know, he was a germaphobe, who had a kind of a really bad hygiene, which seems to be an oxymoron. Right? How do you how do you hate germs? But you don't wash? Right? Anyway, he kept to himself. And he was he was his own man, obviously. And he was used to having things his way because of his money and his power. And I think I think what he did with Jane Russell was sort of scandalous, but not in the sexual way, I think was scandalous, more in the the treatment of another human being, whether it's male, female, or anything, just the treatment of someone and to say, I will use you as a means to an end and not an end in yourself.

Yes, it's very dehumanising and objectifying absolutely no matter the person involved.

And the fact that he could make his money do what he wanted it to do led to him buying RKO Studios, which was always in financial stress. In fact, when he got rid of it eventually was bought by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball to be the house of does he do Studios was the RKO. So what what Howard Hughes meant to Hollywood was another studio but a studio that was run not with a lot of skill. He made basically be he may be movies, but paid a priceless so he

made cars that catch fire that cost hundreds of 1000s of dollars, basically. Well, that's

it, you know, in a, you know, in a film sense, yes.

Yeah. This This comparison is perfect.

Although I'll tell you what, he hired the best marketing people and photographers. For those pictures like Jane Russells haystack picture,

I've seen this picture, this very famous picture of Jane Russell in a haystack with her. Like, I think her shoulders out of her socket almost and like it is just Whoo. It's very salacious, even for them. And even now, please, please tell me everything about this.

What I read was A Jane Russell was not not too unhappy to pose in a kind of a, you know, pinup girl cheesecake pose. But she was upset that even before Photoshop, they had elongated her cleavage and raised her skirt a little bit, maybe put a little, I don't know what you'd call it a little tear in her skirt. Because in the movie, she's raped on that haystack. And it's just the weirdest thing to market your film. Yeah, with that image,

when the actual scene is not the same thing? Yes, that is really shocking.

And he marketed that movie, The Outlaw, which is what that pictures from in 1942. And it was supposed to be released in 43. But it didn't get released because of the production code having trouble and he wanted to milk it. And so he kept saying coming soon watch Jane Russell, as you've never seen her before. And so in 46 it was released in I think San Francisco in a small and then it like every three years it would get another marketing campaign and eventually, I think it grossed like $20 million, which was really good. Yeah, for a kind of a hit or miss movie. But it was all the drive of people who wanted to see what the mystique of Jane Russell's breasts

will be right back after this short break

you know, the way Howard Hughes made movies was he said I want to make movies for the male gaze. Basically, that's that was his job in his mind. And

and lo and behold, it seems to have been very profitable then and now.

Well, you know, Jean Harlow, Jean Harlow was maybe his earliest discovery, platinum blonde. You know when we're Jane Russell had the breasts. Jean Harlow had the hair. Yep. And that platinum blonde look, of course carried over to Marilyn Monroe and in the next generation, so to speak. Yes. But Jane Russell was a working actress. She was She didn't go out to be some kind of a bimbo. But Howard Hughes treated her as eye candy in any movie he made with him. Yes, he did. And I think I think she resented that. Because she was remember she acted in things like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I mean, she she had a really nice kind of skill set for musical dance, acting comedy, she could do a lot of great things. She was a fabulous, you know, party to any Hollywood film. But Howard Hughes abused her not just you know, in a kind of a casting way. But he abused her because he didn't let her her full talents play out in any role. The men in his movies tended to be very domineering of her and I think that he was just playing out his own fantasies with her as he did with the many of the actresses he worked with. And you mentioned earlier in the introduction to this this section, her bra he wanted he wanted those to be as who was it Bob Hope introduced her wants the two and only Jane Russell I think he introduced her that way got the whole idea of using those you know the breasts as as the as the marketing ploy. He wanted to create a new bra type for holy cow would look like she wasn't even aware. ring won a gravity defying bra. And it was a complete failure. And Jane Russell was frankly embarrassed by it. So she basically use some tissue paper and whatever it was at hand and built herself up to the point where she looked the way Howard Hughes wanted her to look, but was not wearing his bra. And didn't tell him she wasn't wearing his bra. And he thought he was a genius. So it's sort of like, you know, but he's gonna miss time. Well, right. And you know, if there's nothing to be said about Hollywood, it is that it is the razzle dazzle in the illusion. And so, you know, she had the Razzle and the Dazzle, and she kept the illusion of at least as long as the cameras were rolling in that costume. So that's, that's the story of the bra. I don't think he ever tried to sell it to anybody. But you know, in my lifetime, and in the 60s, and maybe early 70s Jane Russell was a spokesperson for Playtex bras.

I hope that paid so well for her I her well, we made mad bank.

Well, you know, and there's a certain point in your career where you have to say, this is what they want to see. And they'll pay me to see it. You know, she wasn't a full but I think also she almost probably was winking, you know, saying I know what you want. And Oh, absolutely. The Playtex Bra ladies will give you that Jane Russell mystique. It's

like Jessica Simpson becoming spokesperson for StarKist tuna. Because she once made a very famous dumb joke, I think about how, how could it be chicken of the sea? If it's not chicken and then later? person like you go, girl.

That's right. You know, you gotta turn those lemons into lemonade, right?

Yeah. So when you look at cases like this, and stories like this, and then the current way in which films are marketed, where they're very much marketed based on a single image or two, you have stills released, there's a huge Instagram campaign now tick tock is part of marketing. The visual, trying to come up with the visual for a movie seems like a relatively new concept, but it's not at all is it? Oh, no,

no, no, it you know, marketing of films, advertise. I mean, it's big collector items, you know, early movie posters. And, you know, I belong to like a Marx Brothers Council on Facebook. And, you know, they they're finding pictures and publicity stuff that will blow your mind that the Marx Brothers would stand around and do these, these poses, but they understood that it paid off in butts in the seats,

you know? Yeah, absolutely. And Howard Hughes, as as dehumanising as the technique was, he wasn't wrong to market a film based on a scandal about the film.

Absolutely, absolutely. Because the public will naturally gravitate toward the most the sickest, most depraved reading of any situation, have such what they want. And and they've been trained to do that, sadly, instead of something that is, you know, uplifting and positive. But you know, you were talking about today's movies, and you know, you have these Marvel Universe costumes, and, you know, they're based on characters of comic books, but the audience absolutely is looking for a certain type, when they're watching those heroes. Yep. And it's, it's, it's that eye candy as well. You know, Tom Cruise in the in the Top Gun remake, you know, I mean, anybody who's had a career like Tom Cruise has to be so aware of his image. Absolutely. And, and, you know, it's one of those things where if he strays, or if things come out about him, and I know there's been rumours, his whole career based on either jealousy or just, you know, an attempt to pull him down a peg. Because he is so important, you know, I tell my friends, my favourite Tom Cruise performance is in Tropic Thunder, you know, Tom Cruise is unrecognisable in that, right? You know, he's in offence and he's got a bald folk plate and it's it becomes this kind of almost mockery of what Tom Cruise is about. But it's Tom Cruise wanting to make a statement about the powerful people he's come up against and fought with his whole career. So he's able to satirise people by using an image that he's trading on their looks instead of his own good looks. So he's, he's different from Jane Russell, that bra commercial. He's not playing to that cruise. He's playing the opposite of Tom Cruise, whereas Jane Russell is playing the woman that you want to be.

Yeah, it's a completely different fan engagement strategy. Exactly. So I imagine you're one of the people who still owns a VCR because you watch all of these classic movies. Do you have them on VHS and watch them on a VCR?

Oh, no, you No, what I've been doing is, and here's a trick for your listeners. The library. Oh, this

is a good trick. A lot. A

lot of libraries have DVD collections already. Yep. And if they don't, you can take advantage of Interlibrary Loan to get almost any I mean, I have gotten discs from California, from Canada, some rare discs. So yeah, Interlibrary Loan is a way to get for free almost any DVD you want. I've never heard a librarian say, don't make me work I've ever had in my life. Very grateful to be used.

Where can people find you on the internet if you wish to be found?

Well, you can email me at my page on the West Virginia University Theatre School of Theatre and Dance. That's sort of my official email. That's probably the one that will stay around the longest. And you know, I think if people want to find me, they can find me as long as they know how to spell marchais. Right. That's the toughest thing. It's sort of like it's like a I don't know if you know the word Shibboleth gets the thing that they have to be able to do to gain entry. If they can spell my name right, they can finally there are shades around.

For this episode love to go we're going to toss it back to Dr. Mala Shea who has really good ideas.

I think, you know, since since your your podcast deals with love in all of its forms. Let's let's let's stick with the idea of love. You know, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn absolutely loved each other. Absolutely. And if that's a scandal, you know, they don't deserve. And Howard Hughes absolutely loved breasts.

Very well played, sir. Thank you.

You wanted to know that I gave you in that that's

actually to given you topic here. Thank you so very, very much for joining us. This has been so much fun. And I had the best time and now I have like a list of movies that I want to go watch again. So now that you know more about the story behind the image, the image is even more impactful, right?

It is more impactful. And what's wild to me is that the link you sent me is from Amazon, like you can buy this as a poster.

So a very, very famous image.

One of her most iconic poses and the story behind it is kind of like that's unsavoury that she didn't know that he was going to edit it that way like, but that kind of gets lost decades later. And you're just like, oh, wow, what a gorgeous pinup poster to put on my bathroom.

It's wild, right? Yeah. Really? Wild Wild. Yeah. Well, tune in tomorrow, because we are going to start talking about the present. The present of Hollywood Gossip. I have a very special guest you will not be disappointed to join us tomorrow. It's so much fun.

I am so excited. I love I love present day Hollywood Gossip and I love our next guests for our next two episodes.

But if you would like to tell us your piece of Hollywood Gossip that you love most please email us at lovestruck daily at frolic dot media. If you've got a love story to share, we'd love to hear that too. If you would tell us how much you love a particular story from how old Hollywood I absolutely want to hear it. But if you leave us a review, we will love you forever and ever and ever and ever. Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. We are produced by Abigail steckler and little Scorpion studios with executive producer frolic media. This is an iHeartRadio podcast. We wish you a very very comfortable, uplifting happily ever after. Like a good bra I'm in love with us I'm not with you. I'm in love with you