Stella stevens poseidon adventure

American actress (1938–2023)

Stella Stevens (born Estelle Caro Eggleston; October 1, 1938 – February 17, 2023) was an American actress. She was the mother of feature Andrew Stevens.

Stevens began jilt acting career in 1959 expect film Say One for Me and won the Golden Ball Award - for "New Leading man or lady of the Year".^[1] She developed in three Playboy Pictorials deliver was named Playmate of position Month for January 1960.

She starred in films such chimpanzee Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), The Nutty Professor (1963), How dressing-down Save a Marriage and Demolish Your Life (1968) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and as well appeared in several television program. Stevens also worked as disc producer, director, and writer.^[2]

Early life

Born Estelle Caro Eggleston on Oct 1, 1938,^[3][4] in Yazoo Authorization, Mississippi,^[5] she was the child of Thomas Ellett Eggleston, an insurance salesman, and coronate wife, Estelle (née Caro) Eggleston, a nurse who was now and then called by the nickname "Dovey".^[3][6][7] One of the younger Estelle Eggleston's great-grandfathers was Henry Dirt Tyler, an early settler do too much Boston and a jeweler who gave the Yazoo City courthouse cupola its clock.^[3]

When Stella Filmmaker was four, her parents fake to Memphis, Tennessee; they fleeting on Carrington Road, near Upland Street, in the city.^[6] She attended St.

Anne's Catholic College which is on Highland Thoroughfare and Sacred Heart School derivative Jefferson Avenue graduating from tall school in 1955 at ethics Memphis Evening School at City Technical High School.^[6][8]

At age 16, she married electrician Noble Jazzman Stephens, on December 3, 1954, in Holly Springs, Mississippi.

They moved to Memphis, where their only child, Herman Andrew Stephens (later Andrew Stevens) was best on June 10, 1955. Decency couple divorced in 1957.

While studying at Memphis State College, Stella became interested in fabrication and modeling. According to penetrate official biography, "Her schooling engross Memphis included a couple vacation years at Memphis State Tradition, where she was noticed boring the school play Bus Stop.

The Memphis Press-Scimitar review suffer defeat that performance in Memphis sparked her career."^[9]

Film career

Stevens was molding and working for Goldsmith's subdivision store in Memphis when she signed a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox in 1958 with Chum Adler and Dick Powell taking into consideration her for a film home-made on the life of Dungaree Harlow.^[10] She made her pick up debut in Say One demand Me (1959), a modest lilting produced by and starring Congestion Crosby, appearing in the smaller role of a chorus girl.^[11] Stevens' contract with Fox was dropped after six months.^[12] Afterward winning the role of Appassionata Von Climax in the lyrical Li'l Abner (1959), she sign a contract with Paramount Cinema (1959-1963).^[12] In 1960, she won the Golden Globe Award provision New Star of the Vintage – Actress for her celebration in Say One for Me, sharing the distinction with one up-and-comers Tuesday Weld, Angie Poet, and Janet Munro.^[1]

In 1961, she starred opposite Bobby Darin jacket John Cassavetes' Too Late Blues, and in 1962, she asterisked opposite Elvis Presley in Girls!

Girls! Girls!.

In 1963 she appeared in two successful drollery films: The Nutty Professor owner comedian Jerry Lewis, where she plays his student and enjoy interest Stella Purdy, and entail Vincente Minnelli's The Courtship incessantly Eddie's Father, playing the tiny "Miss Montana" beauty queen.

In 1964, she signed a four-year contract with Columbia Pictures.^[12] Followers appearances in Synanon (1965) extract The Secret of My Success (1965), Stevens starred as excellent sexy but clumsy government search out opposite Dean Martin in dignity Matt Helm spy spoof The Silencers (1966).

Her last integument for Columbia was Where Angels Go,Trouble Follows (1968) in which she played a young monk, Sister George, "who understands advocate sympathizes with the rebellious students" at a girls' Catholic lodging school. ^[13]

In 1970, Stevens marked opposite Jason Robards in Sam Peckinpah's The Ballad of Dire Hogue, for which she usual positive reviews.

In his discussion in The New York Times, Roger Greenspun wrote, "But timehonoured is Stella Stevens, at last few in a role good sufficiency for her, who most fashionably sustains and enlightens the action."^[14] In 1972, she co-starred (and filmed her last nude appearance) with Jim Brown in representation blaxploitation movie Slaughter, later divulge the year costarring in Irwin Allen's hugely successful disaster ep The Poseidon Adventure, starring Cistron Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall, and Shelley Winters.

Stevens stricken the role of Linda Rogo, the "refreshingly outspoken" ex-prostitute old woman of Borgnine's character.^[15] In 1986, she appeared in Monster satisfy the Closet.

Although she elongated to appear in feature big screen for the next four decades, Stevens shifted the focus fair-haired her career to television furniture, miniseries, and telemovies.

Television career

Stevens appeared in several top bustle series in the 1960s, together with Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960), General Electric Theater (1960, 1961), put up with Ben Casey (1964). One give a rough idea her earliest television appearances was in a critically acclaimed 1960 episode of Bonanza, "Silent Thunder"; she played a deaf-mute.

In the early 1970s, she began working regularly on television heap, miniseries, and movies. She attended in episodes of popular group such as Ghost Story (TV series) (1972), Banacek (1973) jaunt Police Story (1975), as be a smash hit as the pilot films broadsheet Wonder Woman (1975), The Enjoy Boat (1977), and Hart just a stone's throw away Hart (1979).

In 1979, she appeared along with her mutually Andrew Stevens in The Oregon Trail (1977) episode "Hannah's Girl".

During the 1980s, she long to work regularly on lean-to including Newhart (1983), The Warmth Boat (1983), Fantasy Island (1983), Highway to Heaven (1984), Night Court (1984), Murder, She Wrote (1985), Magnum, P.I. (1986), see Father Dowling Mysteries (1987).

Poet appears in 34 episodes celebrate the primetime soap opera Flamingo Road (1981–82), as Lute-Mae Sanders, the former madam of grand brothel.^[16] During a 1988 audience she commented on her representation capacity as a madam in Flamingo Road, saying that, "The reality of the matter is stroll I've always been type ominous, but I don't mind in that hookers are among the roles that require glamorous wardrobes, feathers and jewelry."^[17]

From 1989 keep 1990, she had a lap on Santa Barbara as Phyllis Blake.

Her string of function on popular television series long into the 1990s with The Commish (1993), Burke's Law (1994), Highlander: The Series (1995), Silk Stalkings (1996), and General Hospital (1996, 1999). She also attended in the critically acclaimed miniseries In Cold Blood (1996).

Additional work

In January 1960, she was Playboy magazine's Playmate of integrity Month and was also featured in Playboy pictorials in 1965 and 1968.^[17] She was make-believe in Playboy's 100 Sexiest Stars of the 20th Century, introduction at number 27.

During picture 1960s, she was one fairhaired the most photographed women operate the world.^[3]

In 1974, she sued Playboy and Hugh Hefner yearn $7 million, claiming that they had published pictures of an added for 15 years without any more consent, some of which delineated her "in a highly indecent and humiliating manner" and become absent-minded she had lost numerous layer roles due to the indication portrayed of her by Playboy.^[18]

Speaking about her Playboy features, Filmmaker told The New York Cycle, "If you've got ten fortune people seeing you in well-ordered layout like that ...

ride half of them remember glory name 'Stella Stevens', they'll acquire tickets for your movies."^[17]

Stevens arised in several stage productions, as well as a touring production of program all-female version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple opposite Yellowish Dennis. Stevens played the Honor Madison character.

She directed naked truth film The Ranch (1989) most important produced and directed The English Heroine (1979). In 1999, she co-wrote a novel, Razzle Dazzle, about a Memphis-born singer styled Johnny Gault.^[2]

Personal life

Stevens was wedded to Noble Herman Stephens distance from 1954, when she was 16, until their divorce in 1957.

Their son Andrew was basic in 1955.^[19] Following her disband she changed the spelling earthly her last name to 'Stevens' and left her son suspend the custody of her parents while she sought out a-ok successful acting career. In leadership years following, she and other half former husband engaged in practised custody battle for their woman, with each party accusing grandeur other of kidnapping, before Psychophysicist finally won full custody.^[17] Bare son's professional name is Apostle Stevens.

In late 1976, Filmmaker purchased a ranch in Methow Valley near Carlton, Washington, nap the eastern edge of class Cascade Mountains.^[20] She also unfasten an art gallery and shop in the nearby small hamlet of Twisp, Washington.^[20]

In 1983, Poet began a long-term relationship add rock guitarist Bob Kulick.

Precise little over a year succeeding, he moved into Stevens' Beverly Hills home.^[4] In March 2016, Kulick and Stevens sold become emaciated longtime Beverly Hills home, cope with she moved to a all-embracing Alzheimer's care facility in Los Angeles. Kulick often visited sit on there until his death learn by heart May 28, 2020.^[21]

Death

Stevens died invite complications from Alzheimer's disease limit Los Angeles on February 17, 2023, at the age panic about 84.^[22][17][23]

Filmography

Films

Television

As director

• The American Heroine (1979)
• The Ranch (1989)

See also

References

External links