I wrote to Jane Russell on May 23, 1985 – mostly because I had purchased a photo of her through Carl Ahlm’s photo catalog. I had purchased this particular photo because A) It was in color, and B) It showed two hot women, one of them being Marilyn Monroe. I had never seen a single movie with Jane Russell at that point, but knew who she was. A careful check of The Film Encyclopedia indicated some of the famous titles of films she was in: The Outlaw, The Paleface, and of course the film from which the photo below was taken: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Ms. Russell also was kind enough to send along the additional signed photo above – in addition to signing the one below. She did not sign the obligatory enclosed notecards. The photo above indicates that she is the founder of WAIF – an organization of which I had no idea what it was…until today. It stands for the World Adoption International Fund, an organization to place children from foreign countries with adoptive families from the U.S.
I actually had the opportunity to meet Jane Russell when she made a personal appearance at the Hollywood Collectors Show on February 16, 2007. I brought along the above color photo, hoping to coax her into letting me get my photo with her. Her manager Marvin Paige, who I had met fifteen years earlier, did not remember me apparently and consequently charged me $10 to get a photo with her. It was worth it I suppose, although she had so much makeup caked on that she looked positively hideous.
More autographs from 1985 later…
Continue with the celebritiy encounters from the February 2007 HCS…
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