Actress Stella Stevens died today in Los Angeles at 84 from her battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Stevens was best known for her roles in The Nutty Professor and The Poseidon Adventure and Girls! Girls! Girls! where she starred alongside Elvis Presley.
Actor and producer Andrew Stevens, son of the late actress, announced her passing to Deadline.
Stevens grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, where 20th Century Fox discovered her. She got a contract with Paramount and then Columbia throughout the 60s. Not only did she star with Presley, but she acted alongside 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.
Also known for her time with Playboy in the 60s, she managed to snag a Golden Globe in 1959 for the Most Promising Newcomer in her first film Say One For Me, where she starred alongside Bing Crosby and Debbie Reynolds.
After her win, Stevens played the love interest to Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor (inducted into the National Film Registry in 2004) and the wife of Ernest Borgnine in The Poseidon Adventure.
Stevens appeared in dozens of TV movies, and guest starred in over 40 series. 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.
Allegedly, Stevens did not find her time with Playboy as fun as she had hoped and regretted her time with the company after claiming the sexpot label confining.
“I did the best I could with the tools I had and the opportunities given me,” she was once quoted as saying. “I was a divorced mom with a toddler by the time I was 17. And Playboy did as much harm as it helped. But in spite of that rough start, I did OK.”
Manager to Stevens and founder of Green Life Media, Maria Calabrese, remembers the actress as “one of the most wonderful and gifted people” and “the OG of strong Hollywood women.”
“It was an honor and a privilege to work with Stella, who was one of the most wonderful and gifted people I have ever worked with,” Calabrese wrote in a statement to Deadline. “While I truly wish I could have done more for her toward the latter years of her career and shared in her frustration as she so wanted to make the leap from a triple threat American icon to producer – her wish, never realized, was to have three original Western scripts produced. She was an amazing animal lover, horse wrangler, rock and roller, so ahead of her time and so much more than a sex symbol – which her adoring fans admired her for and understood. What a tremendous body of work and loss. She was the OG of strong Hollywood women.”
Along with her son, Stevens is survived by three grandchildren. Her husband was rock musician Bob Kulick who passed away in May 2020.
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