LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Actress Jane Russell, who died Monday at the age of 89, said she always was able to rebound from troubles by relying on lessons she learned from her Bible-preaching mother.
Russell wrote in her 1985 autobiography, “My Paths and Detours,” that during high school she had a back-alley abortion which may have left her unable to bear children. She also was beset by alcoholism.
Russell said, “I don’t know how people can survive all the disasters in their lives if they don’t have any faith, if they don’t know the Lord loves them and cares about them and has another plan.”
Jane Russell first shot to fame 70 years ago in the 1941 Western “The Outlaw.”
In retirement, she was the leader of the Hollywood Christian Group — a cluster of film people who gathered for Bible study and good works — and remained active in her church.
Just a few weeks before her death, she spent time in Paramount Church in Palm Beach, Florida talking about her faith.
Last year Russell did an interview with Peter Chattaway and talked about about her faith and her work in Hollywood:
I gave my heart to the Lord when I was five. And my mother, who had been an actress — a stage actress — became one of the best Bible teachers I ever heard, and I had four brothers, and we heard a Bible story every day. Things happened later in my life where I thought I knew what I was going to do, but instead of that, these things happened — I call them the Lord’s accidents. They’re not accidents to him at all, he’s got it all planned, but it turns you around and you’re doing something you didn’t think you were going to.
