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Was Actress Gail Russell Permanently Impaired From Electro-Shock Treatment? VIDEO & Commentary
Was Actress Gail Russell Permanently Impaired From Electro-Shock Treatment? VIDEO & Commentary
November 9, 2015
Gail Russell was a vibrant Hollywood film actress who rose to fame in the forties with her appearances in 'The Uninvited' (Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey) and 'Angel and the Badman' (John Wayne). Later her career took something of a nosedive after John Wayne's jealous wife filed the infamous complaint against her alleging an affair, etc..
Accounts of actress Gail Russell's career slide blame alcohol, alcohol abuse, etc., but I always thought something else was involved - that something else was missing from the biographical data. Indeed, it was published that after Gail was named in a court action suit against her she, basically, had a nervous breakdown and spent a month in a Seattle sanitarium. The suit by actor John Wayne's wife accused her and Wayne of an alleged affair, etc., but more importantly, the simple observation that Gail went into the sanitarium for intense psychotherapy treatment indicates something in common with histories on actress Frances Farmer, who also was in a Seattle sanitarium, and with actress Susan Peters who entered a sanitarium near the end of her life.
Also, actress Gene Tierney stated the horrors of electro-convulsive shock treatment and how it affected her memory, etc., and Gene suffered a mental condition for the remainder of her life.
So, the larger question is whether electro-convulsive shock treatment was any part of that intense psychotherapy which Gail Russell underwent while in that Seattle sanitarium. If she was subjected to such shock treatment(s) it should be published so the blame for her defective driving and career slide not be blamed solely on alcohol. The reason is because there are explanations for having a compulsion to drink or abuse alcohol, and, any person subjected to such artificial electric shock escapades would not necessarily be in his or her normal right mind. In other words, in such cases where shock treatment is involved - it isn't exactly just a person 'boozing' it up. With damaged brain cells, how can a shock treatment victim have the correct judgement to structure his or her life responsibly and properly?
Significant turns in persons' lives often happen at the juncture where the electro-shock treatments are administered. In the case of the late actress, Susan Peters, death followed not long after her stay in a sanitarium. The late actress, Betsy Palmer, had reportedly mentioned, in an interview, pain pill abuse in the case of Susan Peters, but it doesn't look as if that sanitarium stay worked out to cure her. She went straight out to her brother's ranch and stayed until she soon died.
In the case of Gail Russell, the alcohol abuse seems to have gotten worse after her stay in the sanitarium and the write-ups claim she never recovered from the drinking problem, dead at 36. It appears that her drinking turned into an uncontrollable habit of abuse after the sanitarium visit, and, it also becomes apparent that Gail Russell has been painted with a standard line sort of broad-brush explanation as to why her career faltered, the overly broad blame as alcohol abuse.
Others entertainers who were in sanitariums or mental health wings or facilities.
Marilyn Monroe, dead at 36
Melissa Holliday - singer, former 'Baywatch' extra, and Playboy model - Shock Treatment Victim
Ernest Hemingway - great American author listed as suicide.
