BIO

Harold John Russell was born in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1914.   He moved to Massachusetts with his family in 1933.   In 1941, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the U.S. Army.

While serving as an Army instructor stateside in 1944, a defective fuse detonated an explosive he was handling while making a training film; he lost both hands.   He was given two steel hooks to replace his hands and lower arms and, while attending Boston University under the G.I. Bill, appeared in the Army documentary Diary of a Sergeant about rehabilitating war veterans.

When film director William Wyler saw the film on Russell, he cast him in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).   For his performance, Russell won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1947.   He also received an honorary Oscar for "bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans."

Russell became active in AMVETS, serving three terms as National Commander.

He married Rita Nixon in 1944 and the couple raised two children. After she died in 1978, he married Betty Marshallsee in 1981.

Russell died of a heart attack in Needham, Massachusetts in 1989. He was 75 years old.

Additional biographical information is available at:

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