Song to the Sirens

Jane Russell, who died recently, was among of the best-known of classic Hollywood's sultry sirens

Nigel Britto

It all started with Jean Harlow. If she'd lived, she would have been 100 this month. In her first major role in Hell's Angel, she shocked audiences with her generous exposure and the immortal line: "Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?" She was 18 and the year was 1930. A little later, she played an adulteress in Red-Headed Woman, another role following the same underlying theme - using her sexuality to stop at nothing. In an era when curves were out and being flat was the rage, the platinum blonde was the first actress to peddle her bosom, as it was called then, as an object of erotic fantasy. 

Across the Atlantic, Marlene Dietrich was German director Josef von Sternberg's Harlow;he cast her in several perverse dramas;in her iconic role in The Blue Angel, she played the cheap floozy Lola Lola, a manipulative and scratchy-voiced cabaret singer who reduced a professor to a smitten cabaret clown when he went to find out why his students were circulating pictures of her. The then-shocking role, along with her trademark song Falling in love again, introduced Dietrich to the worldwide audience. Later in Hollywood, she would go on to become one of the highest-paid actresses of her era. 

If the early sirens set the tone for sexuality in cinema, which was still taboo back then, Jane Russell broke the glass ceiling in 1942 in The Outlaw. Her 'twin-engines' were the driving force behind the film;when the controversial film's director Howard Hughes realized that his cameras didn't do justice to Russell's huge assets, he deployed his engineering skills to invent the now-legendary cantilevered underwire brassiere with an innovative design that allowed the 'bosom' to be generously exposed. 

Russell acted in several other films, mostly comedies, post-Outlaw that partially erased her notorious image;but when she died last week due to breathing complications aged 89, most tributes and obituaries still focused on her obvious. Once introduced as 'the two and only' by comedian Bob Hope, Russell was the last of the trio that opened the floodgates for sexual content in mainstream cinema. Though Harlow and Dietrich laid the groundwork with their blip-on-the-radar roles, it was Russell's devil-may-care on-screen attitude that is today seen as the most avant garde of all early siren's roles. 

Today, roles like those of Russell, Harlow or Dietrich would probably elicit a 'meh' from an informed moviegoer, but back then, it was addressing the figurative elephant in the living room. In the modern era, 'leaking' a sex tape may be an established path to celebrityhood;family dramas and even some animated serials have sufficient explicit content to make a seasoned sailor squirm. 

Yet, in the 40s and before, Russell's roles were indeed a big deal. In addition, she also laid the foundation for the popular acceptance and admiration of Marilyn Monroe, the greatest sex symbol of all time and the person whose image comes to mind whenever the two words are used together. The impossible combination of physical characteristics she possessed have never been captured better than in the promo for the film The Seven Year Itch. 

Norma Jean, as she was born, largely built on the groundwork Russell had laid down and arguably influenced the subsequent golden age of sexuality which came in the form of Hugh Hefner's Playboy Empire. The musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes pitted Russell and Monroe as best friends - it was the brunette's lightning-quick wit against Monroe's legendary, more memorable role as the gold-digging Lorelei Lee. 

Half a century later, sex symbols continue to come and go;society's perception of what's sexy and what's not may have changed, but its objectification of beauty hasn't. Cinema has sold female sexuality right from the silent movie era: the first striptease was by Louise Willy in the 1896 film Le Coucher de la Maria. The same year saw perhaps the first instance of censorship in Fatima's Coochie-Coochie Dance, her gyrating pelvis was too much to handle, as was May Irwin Kiss, a less-than-a-minute-long film which was branded pornographic and caused the Vatican to call for censorship. 

Today, lip locks of that kind appear on primetime TV and are hardly considered embarrassing. The change in perception of sex symbols is hardly exemplified better than the male variety. Generally, male stars have never been branded sex symbols, and have not lit up the sets the way the women do. In the 1920s, Rudolph Valentino was everybody's dream man - called the Latin lover, he's one of the most-recognized faces of the silent movie era. 

A little later, women preferred the supersophisticated charmers;Paul Newman's blue eyes and prominent locks, Cary Grant's tuxedos and slicked hair, Fred Astaire and his top-hats, and then Sir Laurence Olivier's attitude and impeccable accent. Legend has it that when the ultimate female and male sex symbols met on the sets on The Prince and the Showgirl, Olivier refused to acknowledge Monroe as an equal. Cinematographer Jack Cardiff writes "Olivier went out of his way to be a pain in the arse to Marilyn". He even invited his wife, Gone With The Wind star Vivien Leigh, to the sets to freak Monroe out. 

Today, the perception of sexy has gone from debonaire to grungy. Not too long ago, the rugged Johnny Depp was voted the sexiest man alive. Known for his rather unconventional roles, his multiple tattoos and weird fashion sense, he is a far cry from the well-polished, three-piece tuxedo-clad dream men of yesteryears. Ditto with the fairer sex;the Gibson girl, an artiste-created personification of the feminine ideal at the turn of the century, has given way to sex symbols of all flavours;the not necessarily attractive vamps (Clara Bow), the shortskirted flappers (Louise Brooks), the bombshells (Harlow, Dietrich, Mae West), the girl next door (Judy Garland), the playful gamine (Audrey Hepburn), the bimbos (Farah Fawcett, Adrienne Barbeau), and the ambitious (Madonna, Megan Fox) while Rudoph Valentino has given way to the bad boys (Marlon Brando), the gentleman (Richard Gere), the vulnerable (Dustin Hoffman) and the rebels (George Clooney, Denzel Washington). 

Towards the end of her career, Jane Russell switched roles. From ultra-liberal to ultra-conservative, she founded the Hollywood Christian Group, a weekly Biblestudy for Christians in the movie business. A little later, she described herself thus: "These days, I am a teetotal, mean-spirited, right-wing, narrowminded, conservative Christian bigot, but not a racist". She also expressed concern about the decreasing morality in movies. And when a confused fan asked her about her change in roles, she replied, "Hey, buddy, Christians have big breasts too".

This article was first published in The Times of India's Crest edition dated March 12, 2011.