Why I love Jane Russell’s per­for­mance in Gen­tle­men Pre­fer Blondes

Think of Howard Hawks’ 1953 com­e­dy Gen­tle­men Pre­fer Blondes, and Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s dit­sy, gold-dig­ging show­girl per­form­ing ​‘Dia­monds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ is like­ly to come to mind. And yet Lorelei Lee’s roman­tic mis­ad­ven­tures wouldn’t shine with quite the same lus­tre were it not for the quick wits and razor-sharp retorts of fel­low show­girl Dorothy Shaw, played with larg­er-than-life phys­i­cal­i­ty and under­stat­ed com­ic flair by Jane Russell

Lust – for life and in its own right – dri­ves Russell’s char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion. Her brassy voice and stat­uesque fig­ure con­trasts Monroe’s breath­i­er, soft­er aura in the open­ing num­ber ​‘Lit­tle Rock’. Dorothy is not look­ing for love, mere­ly a hand­some man to fool around with – a sur­pris­ing­ly mod­ern sen­si­bil­i­ty cap­tured in direct phys­i­cal and ver­bal advances. As soon as Dorothy – ini­tial­ly the chap­er­one – spots the Olympic team trav­el­ling on the ship tak­ing the show­girls to France, she makes her inten­tions clear. ​“Nobody chap­er­ones the chap­er­one,” she smiles, her voice low and her shoul­ders squared in conquest.

By the time Gen­tle­men Pre­fer Blondes came out, Rus­sell was an estab­lished sex sym­bol, Howard Hugh­es famous­ly plas­ter­ing her cleav­age all over the mar­ket­ing for her first film The Out­law. Here, Russell’s phys­i­cal­i­ty and sex­u­al­i­ty are delib­er­ate­ly, con­fi­dent­ly craft­ed. She is the assertive one, refract­ing the desire she has long been the object of back on the men she pur­sues. Dorothy’s words come out plain when plan­ning her next move, yet her voice switch­es to a hon­eyed laugh or full-throat­ed growl when sights are set on her tar­get. Metic­u­lous updos and exag­ger­at­ed­ly drawn-on lips com­plete her care­ful­ly curat­ed image – one wres­tled from the male gaze into her control.

The men Dorothy fawns over are objects of desire, bare­ly more than set dress­ing in her star­ring num­ber ​‘Ain’t There Any­one Here for Love’. Know­ing the Olympic team go to bed at nine o’clock (“Just when life begins!”), she crash­es their train­ing ses­sion with con­fi­dence and com­ic tim­ing to spare. With an arched eye­brow and a bold red lip, Rus­sell bugs her eyes out at a bicep, purring ​“Hon­ey, you’ll hurt yourself.”

The men stu­dious­ly ignore her, as if inan­i­mate, even as she wrig­gles her way between bar­bells, push­es over a box­er-to-be, and eyes up a pair of wrestlers. Her voice grows big­ger and deep­er as she clos­es in for the kill: ​“hunk of man” is roared rather than sung. In the end, Dorothy is car­ried out of the num­ber on the shoul­ders of these ador­ing ath­letes after mak­ing her­self a horny nui­sance – an adu­la­tion that is entire­ly earned.

Monroe’s Lorelei might be the ​“dumb blonde”, but she wor­ries about her companion’s search for a hand­some suit­or rather than a wealthy one. Dorothy’s cyn­i­cism dis­re­gards that future entire­ly; she’s here for good looks and no strings. She can work a crowd and earn her liveli­hood with­out a man dic­tat­ing her shop­ping sprees and nights on the town.

Rus­sell deliv­ers the film’s most quotable obser­va­tions on fem­i­nin­i­ty in a dead­pan drawl. ​“We’ll get our warpaint on and go to work,” she tells Lorelei as they scheme to recov­er some incrim­i­nat­ing footage. Lat­er, she admon­ish­es her com­pan­ion: ​“If we can’t emp­ty his pock­ets between us, then we’re not wor­thy of the name Woman.” Rus­sell knows Dorothy is not dumb for chas­ing looks – her liveli­hood, love life and fem­i­nine iden­ti­ty can exist sep­a­rate­ly yet sym­bi­ot­i­cal­ly, and all are full-time jobs.

Rus­sell ends the film par­o­dy­ing her co-star. When Lorelei is ordered to appear in court to answer for a miss­ing tiara, Dorothy takes her place to give Lorelei time to clear her name. She holds her eyes wide, affects Monroe’s high­er lilt, and frus­trates the judge by delib­er­ate­ly mis­in­ter­pret­ing his inter­ro­ga­tions. She even breaks into a bawdi­er, belt­ed ren­di­tion of ​‘Dia­monds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ to stall the tri­al until the tiara turns up and the case is dis­missed. Rus­sell cap­tures Monroe’s bim­bo act with love and humour, retain­ing Dorothy’s sol­id pres­ence and sharp-tongued essence in cel­e­bra­tion of her icon­ic screen partner.

Rus­sell was decid­ed­ly not like her screen per­sona: she was unshake­ably Chris­t­ian (Mon­roe famous­ly quipped that ​“Jane tried to con­vert me, and I tried to intro­duce her to Freud”), a life­long Repub­li­can, and adamant­ly pro-life after a stu­dio-dri­ven abor­tion left her unable to bear chil­dren. There is a strange jux­ta­po­si­tion between the sen­su­al­i­ty she deliv­ers with rel­ish in Gen­tle­men Pre­fer Blondes and her off-screen stances. A star like her might have a hard­er time exist­ing today, with the faux famil­iar­i­ty of social media blur­ring on- and off-screen personas.

Gen­tle­men Pre­fer Blondes soars on Mon­roe and Russell’s per­fect­ly matched dou­ble act, and Dorothy’s sharpest retorts and lusty pur­suits require Lorelei’s often obliv­i­ous set-up. Watch­ing Dorothy mas­ter­mind the seduc­tions, rob­beries, and dis­guis­es that ulti­mate­ly get the women out of trou­ble and into wed­ding dress­es shows Rus­sell at her most author­i­ta­tive, con­vey­ing zest for life and assertive­ness of aim. Her lega­cy rests on her self-reflex­ive abil­i­ty to shift from woman desired to woman as desir­er, and Hawks’ film is the per­fect preser­va­tion of her irre­press­ible verve.