Actress Gail Russell

Celebrities, Celebrity Q&A, People
on December 23, 2001
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Gail Russell was a popular actress in the 1940s. Is she still alive?
—Robert M., Texas

The beautiful actress, best known for starring opposite John Wayne in Angel and the Badman, died in 1961 at 36. Russell was born in Chicago and moved to California when she was 14. Eventually, her beauty caught the eye of talent scouts at Paramount Pictures, who signed her to a studio contract soon after she graduated from high school. With no experience as an actress, she starred in her first movie, Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour, at age 19. In 1944, she had her first hit, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, based on a popular novel of the time. From then on she worked regularly, until leaving Paramount in 1950.