Who Was Rose Swisher? All About Bill Russell's First Wife

Publish date: 2024-06-19

Rose Swisher was the first wife of the late Bill Russell, a legendary basketball player. A model and photographer, Rose Swisher was born on the 27th of December 1936 and died at the age of 78 on the 11th of September 2014.

Thanks to her former husband Bill Russell’s celebrity status, Rose Swisher came into the limelight but disappeared just immediately after the marriage ended. Bill Russell made a name for himself in the NBA and was popular for playing for the Boston Celtics from 1956 to 1959. In this article, we have gathered scintillating details about his first and late wife, Rose Swisher, and everything about their marital life.

Summary of Rose Swisher’s Bio

Full name: Rose Swisher
Gender: Female
Date of birth: 27th December 1936
Date of death: 11th September 2014
Rose Swisher’s Age: 78 years old at the time of her death
Ethnicity: Mixed (African-American)
Nationality: American
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Religion: Christianity
Marital Status: Divorced
Rose Swisher’s Ex-husband: William Felton “Bill” Russell
Rose Swisher’s Children: William Fenton Russell Jr. (deceased), Jacob H. Russell, Karen Russell
Education: University of San Francisco
Famous for: Being Bill Russell’s first wife
Profession: Model, Photographer

Rose Swisher was Born in 1936 and Died in 2014

The first wife of Bill Russell, Rose Swisher, was born on the 27th of December 1936 and died on the 11th of September 2014 at the age of 78 years old. Her exact place of birth in the United States of America is unknown, but she enjoyed all the privileges, rights, and responsibilities of an American citizen.

Despite the fact that she was the wife of one of the most respected and famous players in the NBA, Rose kept a very low profile. Her penchant for privacy was the reason much information about her personal life, including her parents, siblings, and other family background information, is not accessible in the media.

Because her exact place of birth is not known, it is quite difficult to determine where Rose spent her early life. However, records show that Rose Swisher was a graduate of Nursing from the University of San Francisco. She was an undergraduate at the university around the same time Bill Russell was at the institution.

Meanwhile, long before her marriage to the late NBA star, Rose Russell allegedly worked as a model and photographer. But, there is no record of her accomplishments in either field of endeavor.

Rose Swisher and Bill Russell were Married For Almost Two Decades

Rose Swisher was Bill Rusell’s first wife and spent 17 years of her life married to him. According to several sources, Swisher and Russell were college sweethearts as they met at the University of San Francisco. While Rose was studying Nursing, Bill was studying Physical Education.

While it is confirmed that their love story started in college, more details about the early days of their relationship, including exactly when and how they met, are not undisclosed. However, they reportedly dated each other throughout their days in the university before eventually exchanging marital vows on 9th December 1956 in a private wedding ceremony that was attended by their family members and close friends.

After the wedding, they spent the next seventeen years of their lives together as a married couple. They lived happily together during this time, and their love seemed perfect. However, in 1973, about four years after Russell’s professional basketball career ended, things fell apart between them. They called it quits and went their separate ways.

Neither of them revealed the actual reason for their divorce. It is, however, speculated that they got divorced because they grew emotionally distant from each other. After their divorce, Bill was paying Swisher to take care of herself and their three children as she was the one that got full custody of them.

They Had Three Children Together

Rose Swisher’s 17 years of marriage with Bill Russell was blessed with three children; two sons and a daughter. The late former couple welcomed their first child together, a son named William Fenton Russell Jr., on 2nd November 1957, almost a year after their wedding. Nothing is recorded about William Jr. beside the fact that he passed away at age 59 in 2016 after losing the battle against cancer.

Before his death, he worked as a truck driver at Cox Trucking for many years. Rose and Bill welcomed their second child, another son named Jacob H. Russell, on 6th July 1959. Jacob keeps a low profile but is reportedly living in Washington State with his wife, Sara Mackx Russell, and their two children.

The late former couple had their last child and only daughter Karen Rusell on 20th January 1962. Karen is the only one among her siblings that is in the spotlight. She works as a legal and political analyst and is also a blogger. Her work gave her the privilege of being in the spotlight. Kareen Rusell holds a law degree from Harvard Law School and is currently working with Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights.

What happened to Bill Russell’s First Wife?

Rose Swisher carried on with her life after the crash of her marriage to Bill but in a very private way as opposed to the limelight she experienced while they were still married. For this reason, details of her subsequent relationships were never made open to the public. Hence, it is quite difficult to know whether she got married again or not.

Meanwhile, her marriage to the NBA star remained his longest marriage, lasting from 1956 to 1973. Bill Russell would go on to marry three more women, bringing the total of his marriages to four before his death. His second marriage after Rose was to Dorothy Anstett, an American beauty queen and model famous for being the 1968 Miss USA and fourth runner-up for Miss Universe.

Dorothy and Bill got married in 1977, and the marriage ended after three years in 1980. After that, Bill moved on to marry his third wife, Marilyn Nault, in 1996. Their marriage lasted for 13 years and ended with the death of Nault in 2009 after a battle with Cancer.

Bill Russell’s fourth and final marriage before his death was to Jeannine Fiorito, a former professional golfer. Jeannine Fiorito was at Bill’s side at the time of his death at his home in Mercer Island, Washington, on the 31st of July, 2022.

Rose Swisher, on her own part, died eight years before her ex-husband. She died on 11th September 2014. As a result of her low-profile nature following her divorce from the late NBA star, the cause of her death was not known to the public to date.