Posted on 02/17/2023 1:29:30 PM PST by Borges
Stella Stevens, the actress best known for her roles in The Nutty Professor and The Poseidon Adventure and starring opposite Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls!, died today in Los Angeles after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 84.
Stevens’ passing was confirmed to Deadline by her son, actor-producer Andrew Stevens, and her longtime friend John O’Brien.
She won a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer for her first film, 1959’s Say One for Me, which starred Bing Crosby and Debbie Reynolds. Stevens also appeared in Lil Abner that year.
She went on to play Jerry Lewis’ dream girl in The Nutty Professor — which was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2004 — and the lippy wife of Ernest Borgnine in The Poseidon Adventure, the star-packed pic about the wreck of a luxury liner that was among the biggest hits of 1972 and helped fuel that decade’s disaster-movie trend.
Her many other film credits include The Silencers, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Sol Madrid, Where Angels Go Trouble Follows! and The Secret of My Success.
Born on October 1, 1938, in Yazoo City, MI, Stevens was also a steady presence on television, appearing in dozens of TV movies and guest-starring in more than 40 series. She had a major arc in Ben Casey as a woman who awakens from a 13-year coma and has a brief fling with Vince Edwards’ title doctor. She also appeared in such hit shows as Bonanza and Ben Casey in the ‘60s through Wonder Woman, The Love Boat, Police Story, Hart to Hart, Newhart, Magnum, P.I., Night Court, The Commish, Arli$$, Silk Stalkings and Murder, She Wrote.
For two seasons in the early ‘80s, she starred in the primetime soap Flamingo Road and later had recurring roles in Santa Barbara and General Hospital. Reportedly, Stevens came to regret her association with Playboy, finding the sexpot label confining.
A former Playboy centerfold from January 1960, Stevens was modeling in her hometown of Memphis when she was discovered and given a screen test by 20th Century Fox. She wound up under contract with Paramount and then Columbia through the ’60s, starring opposite such big names as Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls!, Dean Martin in How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life, Bobby Darin in Too Late Blues, Chuck Conners in Synanon and Glenn Ford in The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, ADvance to the Rear and Rage.
I only saw bits and pieces of it, as I was in grade school when it aired. I only remember Morgan Fairchild from it (who played Stella’s biological daughter).
Quite a different film from the earlier “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father”, also with Glenn Ford and Stella Stevens (which later became the tv show with Bill Bixby).
Mississippi gal
RIP
another babe of my youth
Gene Hackman - Living
Ernest Borgnine - R.I.P.
Red Buttons - R.I.P.
Carol Lynley - R.I.P.
Shelley Winters - R.I.P.
Roddy McDowall - R.I.P.
Stella Stevens - R.I.P.
Jack Albertson - R.I.P.
Pamela Sue Martin - Living
Arthur O'Connell - R.I.P.
Eric Shea - Living
Leslie Nielsen - R.I.P.
Byron Webster - R.I.P. Sad to hear. She made a big impression on me.
You may be thinking of Joey Heatherton, whose dad Ray Heatherton was the Merry Mailman. Stella was gorgeous; Joey was HOT!
So beautiful.
I see Carol Linley on your list as RIP. IIRC, it wasn’t too long ago that she left us.
Right. I think Joey had “it” X10.
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