At the 1948 Oscar awards ceremonies, just prior to the announcement of the name for the Best Actress Award, she started to get up (she assumed she would win for "Mourning Becomes Electra"), and had her balloon burst when Loretta Young's name was announced.
During the filming of The Women (1939), Rosalind Russell actually bit Paulette Goddard in their fight sequence. Despite the permanent scar the bite left Goddard, the actresses remained friends.
She was a staunch conservative Republican and an avid supporter and personal friend of Dwight D. Eisenhower in particular.
11
Russell wanted the role of Sylvia Fowler in The Women (1939) so much that she did five screen tests. On the fifth one, she burlesqued the role, which pleased director George Cukor and won her the role.
12
Profiled in book "Funny Ladies" by Stephen Silverman (1999).
13
Shares the screen with actress and former vaudevillian June Havoc in My Sister Eileen (1942). Twenty years later, she portrays Havoc's mother, Mama Rose, in the musical Gypsy (1962).
14
Helped Van Johnson overcome his fear of live audiences after goading him into performing in nightclubs. He made his Las Vegas debut in the 1950s.
15
Her husband, son, and son's wife (actress Patricia Morrow), and a priest were at her bedside when she died.
16
Her son married actress Patricia Morrow on March 15, 1975. They later divorced in the 1980s.
Cary Grant introduced her to her future husband and was the best man at their wedding.
21
Her performance as Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday (1940) is ranked #28 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
22
In 1971, she accepted the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role on behalf of Helen Hayes, who was not present at the awards ceremony. Hayes won the award for her tour-de-force role as Mrs. Ada Quonsett in Airport (1970).
23
She died after a long battle with breast cancer in 1976 at age 69, although initially her age was misreported because she had shaved a few years off her true age.
24
Won Broadway's 1953 Tony Award as Best Actress (Musical) for "Wonderful Town", a musical based on the same source as her film My Sister Eileen (1942), for which she received an Oscar nomination playing the same character. She also received a 1957 Tony Award nomination as Best Actress (Dramatic for "Auntie Mame", a role she recreated in an Oscar-nominated performance in the film version Auntie Mame (1958)).
25
She refused to be placed in the Best Supporting Actress category when Columbia Pictures wanted to promote her for an Academy Award nomination for her role in Picnic (1955). Many felt she would have won had she cooperated.
26
Died about three weeks after Patrick Dennis, the author of Auntie Mame (1958), one of her most famous roles.
27
Gave birth to her only child age 35, a son Lance Brisson on May 7, 1943. Child's father is her husband, Frederick Brisson.
28
Following her death, she was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.