Actress Jane Russell Dies

The Gentlemen Prefer Blondes bombshell was 89.

Russell died Monday at her home in Santa Maria, CA after contracting a respiratory illness. The voluptuous star first gained the public’s attention in a series of westerns in the 1940’s and 50’s, but it was her turn opposite Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes that shot her to superstardom. She also starred alongside Frank Sinatra and Groucho Marx in 1951’s Double Dynamite. A staunch Republican, she often described herself as a “mean-spirited, right-wing, narrow-minded, conservative Christian bigot” and campaigned throughout her life against abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. At the age of 19, she herself was the victim of a botched back-alley abortion that left her unable to have children.