Gentlemen Marry Brunettes Gentlemen Marry Brunettes Gentlemen Marry Brunettes is a 1955 technicolor romantic Western musical comedy film produced by Russ-Field productions, starring Jane Russell and Jeanne Crain, and released by United Artists. It was directed by Richard Sale, produced by the director and Bob Waterfield (Russell's husband) with Robert Bassler as executive producer, from a screenplay by Mary Loos and Sale, based on the novel "But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" by Anita Loos. Anita Loos was the author of the novel and play "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", which had been turned into a smash film with Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe two years before.
Sex symbol screen lover Rudolph Valentino's death in 1926 caused mass hysteria among his female fans. In Hollywood, many film stars were seen as sex symbols, such as Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, and Clark Gable. The "bad boy" image of the 1950s was epitomized by sex symbols such as James Dean and Marlon Brando. In his Elvis Presley obituary, Lester Bangs credited him as "the man who brought overt blatant vulgar sexual frenzy to the popular arts in America," in the 1950s and 1960s, through his overtly suggestive dance moves. With regard to fiction, Rotten Tomatoes states that the 1930s cartoon character