{"id":33200,"date":"2020-05-15T08:34:53","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T12:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=33200"},"modified":"2020-05-15T08:34:53","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T12:34:53","slug":"the-bootleg-files-jane-russell-playtex-commercials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/15\/the-bootleg-files-jane-russell-playtex-commercials\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Jane Russell Playtex Commercials"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 728:<\/strong> \u201cJane Russell Playtex Commercials\u201d (series of television advertisement featuring the buxom star selling bras and girdles).<\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> All old-time commercials get bootlegged.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Not likely.<\/p>\n

Jane Russell became a movie star in the 1940s thanks to producer Howard Hughes\u2019 infantile preoccupation with bosoms. But she maintained her stardom as a result of her droll talent for light comedy and a tough-broad-with-a-heart-of-gold persona that captivated audiences.
\n<\/p>\n

But not unlike many of her peers, Russell had a finite shelf life as a film star. Her film career began to wane by the late 1950s, and through the 1960s she was a fleeting presence in guest roles in forgettable films and a good-natured decorative presence in television appearances. In 1971, she made her Broadway debut replacing the formidable Elaine Stritch in \u201cCompany,\u201d earning rave reviews and audience applause for her show-stopping rendition of \u201cThe Ladies Who Lunch.\u201d But by the time Russell hit that career peak, she was 50 years old and the Hollywood studios were not eager to have her back in the spotlight.<\/p>\n

However, the creative time behind the marketing of Playtex\u2019s lingerie line saw a potential goldmine in Russell. Although she was at the half-century mark, she was still movie star gorgeous \u2013 and her Broadway smash coupled with the reruns of her films on television ensured that she was not forgotten by the public. <\/p>\n

Russell\u2019s admirable anatomy and her gift for gentle self-deprecatory humor were combined into an advertising campaign to bolster several Playtex products, most notably its\u2019 line of 18-Hour brassieres and girdles. Russell pitched the product lines to her fellow \u201cfull-figured gals\u201d \u2013 old-school coded language for busty and curvy babes \u2013 with a degree of subtle charm that was rare for the anvil-worthy sales pitches of the era.<\/p>\n

The beauty of the commercials was Russell\u2019s ability \u2013 as well as the skills of the copywriters on these advertisements \u2013 to sell the sizzle instead of the steak. In none of these commercials did Russell ever take off her clothing to model the brassieres or girdles \u2013 not that she would look unappealing, but because it wasn\u2019t necessary. The point of the pitch was to show how well the lingerie highlighted a full-dressed woman\u2019s anatomy, and the designer clothing-clad Russell still looked like she was the queen of the RKO lot as she made her on-camera pitches.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Russell came to this campaign at a time in her life when she could offer both a wonderful sense of mature authority along with a nostalgic reminder of why she became a star. One of the commercials in the series showed a publicity still from her youthful star-making debut in \u201cThe Outlaw.\u201d With the black-and-white photograph on camera, the off-camera Russell charmingly observes, \u201cThat\u2019s Jane Russell, starlet, full-figured then.\u201d Suddenly, the camera cuts to a seated contemporary Russell, who adds \u201cAnd full-figured now\u201d while standing up to reveal a va-va-voom figure. Seriously, for the male viewer it is impossible to keep eye contact with Russell in these commercials \u2013 and, I assume, the \u201cfull-figured gals\u201d watching these ads were wondering if the Playtex line could make them as sexy as Russell.<\/p>\n

Well, it seems that more than a few women were convinced by Russell\u2019s celebrity endorsement of the product line. Playtex kept Russell as a celebrity spokeswoman for more than a decade, and many people who grew up during the 1970s and early 1980s probably got their first introduction to Russell through these fun and easy-going commercials that showed off her most famous assets.<\/p>\n

Russell once commented, \u201cSex appeal is good, but not if it\u2019s in bad taste. Then it\u2019s ugly. I don\u2019t think a star has any business posing in a vulgar way. I\u2019ve seen plenty of pin-up pictures that have sex appeal, interest and allure, but they’re not vulgar. They have a little art in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In many ways, the Playtex commercials were Russell\u2019s last hurrah as a star. She did occasional appearances on television in the late 1980s and fastened her name to a 1985 autobiography. A private struggle with alcoholism sidelined her for much of her later years \u2013 I can still vividly recall an appearance on Merv Griffin\u2019s talk show to promote her autobiography when she was obviously inebriated, with Merv trying desperately to keep the conversation flowing despite her problematic condition. When Russell passed away in 2011, all of the obituaries acknowledging her departure highlighted the Playtex advertisements among her career peaks.<\/p>\n

Some of the Russell commercials for Playtex can be found on YouTube. For anyone studying marketing \u2013 particularly fashion promotions \u2013 they deserve to be studied. And while Russell will always be cherished as the gun-toting partner in mayhem in Bob Hope\u2019s \u201cPaleface\u201d romps and as Marilyn Monroe\u2019s fast-thinking ally in \u201cGentlemen Prefer Blondes,\u201d the consumers of generous-sized brassieres and the men who love them will always cross their hearts for Russell\u2019s warm sense of salesmanship.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to the award-wining podcast \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall\u201d<\/a> on SoundCloud. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 728: \u201cJane Russell Playtex Commercials\u201d (series of television advertisement featuring the buxom star selling bras and girdles). LAST SEEN: On YouTube. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: All old-time commercials get bootlegged. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely. Jane Russell became a movie star in the 1940s thanks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":33201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[1416,2146,2484,1945],"class_list":["post-33200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-1970s","tag-jane-russell","tag-playtex","tag-tv-commercials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33202,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33200\/revisions\/33202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}