She plays Doc Holliday's girl Rio, who falls in love with a wounded Billy the Kid when he hides out with her, on the run from Pat Garrett. Not remotely historically accurate, this blood-heat western is best remembered for the censorship squabbles over exactly how far Russell was allowed to lean over while tenderly ministering to the Kid. Hughes's legendary underwired cantilevered brassiere was designed during the shooting of the film, but Russell denied she ever wore it.
The Paleface (1948) was a real change of pace: a comedy western with Bob Hope as the useless dentist Peter Potter, who plays husband to Russell's deep-cover Calamity Jane. Songs, giggles and full Technicolor, it was a recipe for success that made a sequel, Son of Paleface (1952), inevitable. Here's Hope and Russell doing Buttons and Bows – so good they had to do it twice. Russell gets a bit more of a look-in in the second film.
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