Stella Stevens

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Stella Stevens
File:Stella Stevens GE Theater 1961.JPG
Stevens in 1961
Born Estelle Eggleston
(1938-10-01)October 1, 1938
Yazoo City, Mississippi, U.S.
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Education Memphis State University
Occupation Actress
Years active 1959–2010
Spouse(s) Noble Stephens (m. 1954; div. 1957)
Partner(s) Bob Kulick (1983–2020; his death)
Children Andrew Stevens
Website stellastevens.biz

Stella Stevens (born Estelle Eggleston; October 1, 1938 – February 17, 2023) was an American actress and model. She began her acting career in 1959 and starred in popular films such as Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), The Nutty Professor (1963), The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963), The Silencers (1966), Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and The Poseidon Adventure (1972).

Stevens also appeared in numerous television series, miniseries, and movies including Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960, 1988), Bonanza (1960), The Love Boat (1977, 1983), Hart to Hart (1979), Newhart (1983), Murder, She Wrote (1985), Magnum, P.I. (1986), Highlander: The Series (1995), and Twenty Good Years (2006). In 1960, she won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress.[1] Stevens worked as a film producer, director, and writer.[2] She appeared in three Playboy pictorials, and was Playmate of the Month for January 1960.

Early life

Born Estelle Eggleston on October 1, 1938,[3][4] in Yazoo City, Mississippi,[5] she was the only child of Thomas Ellett Eggleston, an insurance salesman, and his wife, Estelle (née Caro) Eggleston, a nurse who was sometimes called by the nickname "Dovey".[3][6] [7] One of the younger Estelle Eggleston's great-grandfathers was Henry Clay Tyler, an early settler from Boston and a jeweler who gave the Yazoo City courthouse cupola its clock.[3]

When Stella Stevens was four, her parents moved to Memphis, Tennessee; they lived on Carrington Road near Highland Street in the city.[6] She attended St. Anne's Catholic School which is on Highland Street and Sacred Heart School on Jefferson Avenue graduating from high school in 1955 at the Memphis Evening School at Memphis Tech High School.[6][8]

At age 16, she married electrician Noble Herman Stephens on December 3, 1954, in Holly Springs, Mississippi, but moved to Memphis, where their only child, Herman Andrew Stephens (he changed his name to Andrew Stevens becoming an actor/producer), was born on June 10, 1955. The couple divorced in 1957. While studying at Memphis State University, Stella became interested in acting and modeling. According to her official biography, "Her schooling in Memphis, included a couple of years at Memphis State University, where she was noticed in the school play Bus Stop. The Memphis Press-Scimitar review of that performance in Memphis sparked her career."[9]

Film career

Stella Stevens
Playboy centerfold appearance
January 1960
Preceded by Ellen Stratton
Succeeded by Susie Scott
Personal details
Height 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m)
File:The Nutty Professor 1963 (publicity photo, Lewis and Stevens - cropped).jpg
Film publicity picture for The Nutty Professor with Jerry Lewis

Stevens made her film debut in Say One for Me (1959),[10] a modest musical produced by and starring Bing Crosby, appearing in the minor role of a chorus girl.[11] Stevens' contract with 20th Century-Fox was dropped after six months.[12] After winning the role of Appassionata Von Climax in the musical Li'l Abner (1959),[13] she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures (1959-1963).[12] In 1960, she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress for her performance in Say One for Me,[1] sharing the distinction with fellow up-and-comers Tuesday Weld, Angie Dickinson, and Janet Munro.[1]

In January 1960, she was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month and was also featured in Playboy pictorials in 1965 and 1968. She was included in Playboy's 100 Sexiest Stars of the 20th Century, appearing at number 27. During the 1960s, she was one of the most photographed women in the world.[3]

In 1961, she starred opposite Bobby Darin in John Cassavetes' Too Late Blues, and in 1962, she starred opposite Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls!.[14] The following year, she appeared in two successful comedy films: Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor (1963), as his student and love interest Stella Purdy,[15] and in Vincente Minnelli's The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963), playing the would-be "Miss Montana" beauty queen.[16]

In 1964, she signed a contract with Columbia Pictures (1964–68).[12] Following appearances in Synanon (1965)[17] and The Secret of My Success (1965), Stevens starred as a sexy but clumsy government agent opposite Dean Martin in the Matt Helm spy spoof The Silencers (1966).[18] Her last film for Columbia was Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968) in which she played Sister George.[19]

In 1970, Stevens starred opposite Jason Robards in Sam Peckinpah's The Ballad of Cable Hogue, for which she received positive reviews. In his review in The New York Times, Roger Greenspun wrote, "But it is Stella Stevens, at last in a role good enough for her, who most wonderfully sustains and enlightens the action."[20] In 1972, she co-starred with Jim Brown in the blaxploitation movie Slaughter, later in the year costarring in Irwin Allen's hugely successful disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, starring Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Roddy McDowall, and Shelley Winters. Stevens played the role of Linda Rogo, the "refreshingly outspoken" ex-prostitute wife of Borgnine's character.[21] In 1986, she appeared in Monster in the Closet.

Although she continued to appear in feature films for the next four decades, Stevens shifted the focus of her career to television series, miniseries, and movies.

Television career

Stella Stevens and Hugh O'Brian, General Electric Theater, 1961

Stevens appeared in several top television series in the 1960s, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960), General Electric Theater (1960, 1961), and Ben Casey (1964). One of 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 series, miniseries, and movies. She appeared in episodes of popular series like Banacek (1973) and Police Story (1975), as well as the pilot films for Wonder Woman (1975), The Love Boat (1977), and Hart to Hart (1979). In 1979, she appeared along with her son Andrew Stevens in The Oregon Trail (1977) episode "Hannah's Girl".

During the 1980s, she continued to work regularly on series including Newhart (1983), The Love Boat (1983), Fantasy Island (1983), Highway to Heaven (1984), Night Court (1984), Murder, She Wrote (1985), Magnum, P.I. (1986), and Father Dowling Mysteries (1987). Stevens appears in 34 episodes of the primetime soap opera Flamingo Road (1981–82), as Lute-Mae Sanders, the former madam of a brothel.[22]

From 1989 to 1990, she had a role on Santa Barbara as Phyllis Blake. Her string of appearances on popular television series continued 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 appeared in the critically acclaimed miniseries In Cold Blood (1996).

Additional work

In the 1960s, Stevens was a member of a five-voice vocal ensemble called The Skip-Jacks. The group is best known for performing the theme songs for the television programs The Flintstones and The Patty Duke Show.[23]

Stevens appeared in several stage productions, including a touring production of an all-female version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple opposite Sandy Dennis. Stevens played the Oscar Madison character. She directed the feature film, The Ranch (1989) and produced and directed The American Heroine (1979). In 1999, she co-wrote a novel, Razzle Dazzle, about a Memphis-born singer named Johnny Gault.[2]

Stevens in 2009

Personal life

Stevens was married to electrician Noble Herman Stephens from 1954, when she was 16, until their divorce in 1957. Their son Andrew Stevens was born in 1955.[24]

In late 1976, Stevens purchased a ranch in Methow Valley near Carlton, Washington on the eastern edge of the Cascade Mountains.[25] She also opened an art gallery and bakery in the nearby small town of Twisp, Washington.[25]

In 1983, Stevens began a long-term relationship with rock guitarist Bob Kulick. A little over a year later, he moved into Stevens' Beverly Hills home.[4] In March 2016, Kulick and Stevens sold her longtime Beverly Hills home, and she moved to a long-term Alzheimer's care facility in Los Angeles. Kulick often visited her there until his death on May 28, 2020.[26]

Stevens died from Alzheimer's disease in Los Angeles on February 17, 2023, at the age of 84.[27][28]

Poster for film Girls, Girls, Girls 1962
File:The Nutty Professor (1962 poster).jpg
The Nutty Professor movie poster

Filmography

Films

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Television

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  • Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960, Episode: "Craig's Will") as Judy
  • Johnny Ringo (1960, Episode: "Uncertain Vengeance") as Suzanne Crale
  • Hawaiian Eye (1960, Episode: "Kakua Woman") as Carol Judd
  • Bonanza (1960, Episode: "Silent Thunder") as Ann 'Annie' Croft
  • Riverboat (1960, Episode: "Zigzag") as Lisa Walters
  • General Electric Theater (1960, Episode: "The Graduation Dress") as Laura Jericho
  • General Electric Theater (1961, Episode: "The Great Alberti") as May Alberti
  • Follow the Sun (1961, Episode: "Conspiracy of Silence") as Linda Laurence
  • Frontier Circus (1962, Episode: "The Balloon Girl") as Katy Cogswell
  • Ben Casey (1964, 2 episodes) as Jane Hancock
  • In Broad Daylight (1971, TV Movie) as Elizabeth Chappel
  • Ghost Story (1972, Episode: "The Dead We Leave Behind") as Joanna Brent
  • Hec Ramsey (1972, Episode: "Hangman's Wages") as Ivy Turnwright
  • Climb an Angry Mountain (1972, TV Movie) as Sheila Chilko
  • Banacek (1973, Episode: "Ten Thousand Dollars a Page") as Jill Hammond
  • Linda (1973, TV Movie) as Linda Reston
  • Honky Tonk (1974, TV Movie) as Gold Dust
  • The Day the Earth Moved (1974, TV Movie) as Kate Barker
  • Police Story (1975, Episode: "The Losing Game") as Margaret Case
  • Wonder Woman (1975, Episode: "The New Original Wonder Woman") as Marcia
  • Kiss Me, Kill Me (1976, TV Movie) as Stella Stafford
  • Wanted: The Sundance Woman (1976, TV Movie) as Lola Wilkins
  • The Love Boat (1977, TV movie, pilot)
  • Charlie Cobb: Nice Night for a Hanging (1977, TV Movie) as Martha McVea
  • Murder in Peyton Place (1977, TV Movie) as Stella Chernak
  • The Night They Took Miss Beautiful (1977, TV Movie) as Kate Malloy
  • The Oregon Trail (1977, Episode: "Hannah's Girl", appears with her son, Andrew Stevens) as Hannah Morgan
  • The Eddie Capra Mysteries (1978, 1 episode)
  • The Jordan Chance (1978, TV Movie) as Verna Stewart
  • Friendships, Secrets and Lies (1979, TV Movie) as Edyth
  • Hart to Hart (1979, Episode: "Express to Terror") as Dr. Fleming
  • The French Atlantic Affair (1979), miniseries
  • Make Me an Offer (1980, TV Movie) as Deidre Price
  • Flamingo Road (1980–1982, 34 episodes) as Lute-Mae Sanders
  • Children of Divorce (1980, TV Movie) as Sherry Malik
  • Twirl (1981, TV Movie) as Carolyn Moore
  • Matt Houston (1983, Episode: "Whose Party Is It Anyway?") as Clover McKenna
  • The Love Boat (1983, 3 episodes) as Toni Cooper / Kathy Costello / Leonara Klopman
  • Women of San Quentin (1983, TV Movie) as Lt. Janet Alexander
  • Newhart (1983, 2 episodes) as Erica Chase
  • Fantasy Island (1983, 2 episodes) as Marion Sommers / Maatira
  • Amazons (1984, TV Movie) as Kathryn Lundquist
  • No Man's Land (1984, TV Movie) as Nellie Wilder
  • Hotel (1984, Episode: "Flesh and Blood") as Rita DeLaine
  • Highway to Heaven (1984, Episode: "Help Wanted: Angel") as Stella
  • Night Court (1984, Episode: "Harry and the Madam") as Irene Danbury
  • Murder, She Wrote (1985, Episode: "Funeral at Fifty-Mile") as Sally Mestin
  • A Masterpiece of Murder (1986, TV Movie) as Della Vance / Deb Potts
  • Magnum, P.I. (1986, Episode: "Find Me a Rainbow") as Loretta 'Lolly' Zachary van der Post
  • The History of White People in America: Volume II (1986, TV Movie)
  • Tales from the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson (1987, TV Movie) as Mimi Carteret
  • Adventures Beyond Belief (1987, TV Movie) as Mrs. Loretta Kemble
  • Tales from the Hollywood Hills: A Table at Ciro's (1987, TV Movie) as Mimi Carteret
  • Father Dowling Mysteries (1987, "Fatal Confession") as Katherine 'Kate' St. Urban
  • Man Against the Mob (1988, TV Movie) as Joey Day
  • Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1988, Episode: "Twist") as Georgia Brooks
  • Jake Spanner, Private Eye (1989, TV Movie) as Sandra Summers
  • Santa Barbara (1989–1990, 66 episodes) as Phyllis Blake
  • Dream On (1990, Episode: "Over Your Dead Body") as Lyla Murphy
  • In the Heat of the Night (1991, Episode: "A Woman Much Admired") as Georgia Farren
  • Dangerous Curves (1992, Episode: "In the Name of Love") as Muffy Fuller
  • The Commish (1993, Episode: "Eastbridge Boulevard") as Donna DeVries
  • Burke's Law (1994, Episode: "Who Killed the Romance?") as Candice Collier
  • Attack of the 5 Ft. 2 In. Women (1994, TV Movie) as Lawanda
  • Highlander: The Series (1995, Episode: "Vendetta") as Margaret Lang
  • Dave's World (1995, Episode: "The Mommies") as Dave's Mother
  • Subliminal Seduction (1996, TV Movie) as Mrs. Beecham
  • Renegade (1996, Episode: "Love Hurts") as Amanda Sixkiller
  • Arli$$ (1996, Episode: "What About the Fans?") as Flora Lansing
  • Silk Stalkings (1996, Episode: "When She Was Bad") as Mrs. Morton
  • In Cold Blood (1996, 2 episodes) as Hotel Keeper
  • General Hospital (1996-1999)
  • The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! (1997, TV Movie) as Josephine 'Mama Jo' Max
  • Nash Bridges (1997, Episode: "Deliverance") as Suzie Dupree
  • The Christmas List (1997, TV Movie) as Natalie Parris
  • Viper (1998, Episode: "The Getaway") as Lorraine
  • By Dawn's Early Light (2000, TV Movie) as Eli
  • Strip Mall (2001, 5 episodes) as Doreen Krudup
  • Twenty Good Years (2006, Episode: "The Crying Game") as Martha

As director

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

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Some sources cite her birthplace as Hot Coffee, Mississippi. Stevens confirms Yazoo City in Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Say One For Me 1959 (Trailer) Bing Crosby Debbie Reynolds on YouTube
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Li'L Abner Original Trailer on YouTube
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Girls! Girls! Girls! - Trailer on YouTube
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 The Nutty Professor (1963) - Trailer on YouTube
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 The Courtship of Eddie's Father - Trailer on YouTube
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Synanon: Trailer (1965) on YouTube
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 The Silencers (Opening Credits) on YouTube
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Where Angels Go Trouble Follows! (1968) trailer on YouTube
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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