BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
Full Name: Estelle Eglestone
Description: Actress, Director, Producer, USA
Known For: Starred opposite Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls!.
Instruments: Voice
Location: United States of America
Date Born: 1st October 1939 Died – February 17, 2023)
Location Born: Yazzo Ciy, Missippi, United States of America
YOUTUBE VIDEO
BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE
Stella Stevens
Stella Stevens (born October 1, 1938) is an American film, television, and stage actress. She began her acting career in 1959 and starred in such popular films as 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. Stevens has also worked as a film producer, director, and writer. She appeared in three Playboy pictorials, and was Playmate of the Month for January 1960.
She was born Estelle Caro Eggleston in 1938 in Yazoo City, Mississippi, the only child of Thomas Ellett Eggleston and his wife Estelle (née Caro) One of her great-grandfathers was Henry Clay Tyler, an early settler from Boston and a jeweler who gave the Yazoo City courthouse cupola its clock.
When Stevens was four years old, her parents moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where they lived on Carrington Road near Highland Street. Her father was an insurance salesman, and her mother was a nurse. Stevens attended St. Anne’s Catholic School on Highland Street and Sacred Heart School on Jefferson Avenue, finishing her final year of high school in 1955 at the Memphis Evening School at Memphis Tech High School.
At the age of 16, she married electrician Noble Herman Stephens on December 1, 1954, probably in Memphis. They had one child, Herman Andrew Stephens, who would later be known as actor/producer Andrew Stevens. He is Stella’s only child. The couple divorced in 1957 but Stella and her son retained a variation of her ex-husband’s surname as their own professional surnames. While studying at Memphis State College, she became interested in acting and modeling. While performing in a college production of Bus Stop, Stevens was discovered and offered a contract with 20th Century Fox.
Stevens made her film debut in Say One for Me (1959), a modest musical produced by and starring Bing Crosby, appearing in the minor role of a chorus girl. Stevens’ contract with 20th Century-Fox was dropped after six months. After winning the role of Appassionata Von Climax in the musical Li’l Abner (1959), she signed a contract with Paramount Pictures (1959-1963). In 1960, she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress for her performance in Say One for Me, sharing the distinction with fellow up-and-comers Tuesday Weld, Angie Dickinson, and Janet Munro.
Throughout the late 1950s and 1960s Stevens achieved success as a model. When high-speed Ektachrome film was introduced in 1959, Stevens was the first person ever photographed for a formal portrait by the light of a single candle and several reflectors for the cover of a photography magazine. 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 magazine’s 100 Sexiest Stars of the 20th Century, appeared at number 27. During the 1960s she was one of the most photographed women in the world.
In 1962, Stevens starred opposite Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls!. The following year she appeared in two successful comedy films: Jerry Lewis’s The Nutty Professor (1963), and Vincente Minnelli’s The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (film) (1963) playing the would-be Miss Montana beauty queen. In 1964, she signed a contract with Columbia Pictures (1964–1968). Following appearances in Synanon (1965) and The Secret of My Success (1965), Stevens starred opposite Dean Martin in the Matt Helm spy spoof The Silencers (1966). Her final film for Columbia was Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968) in which she played “Sister George”.
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.” In 1972 she starred in Irwin Allen’s The Poseidon Adventure with 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.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.
Stevens appeared in several top television shows 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 1960 episode of Bonanza, “Silent Thunder”, playing a deaf mute. In the early 1970s she began working regularly in television series, miniseries, and movies. She appeared in episodes in such popular series as 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 in the The Oregon Trail (1977) episode “Hannah’s Girl”.
In the 1980s she continued to work regularly in popular television series such as Newhart (1983), The Love Boat (1983), Fantasy Island (1983), Highway to Heaven (1984), Murder, She Wrote (1985), Magnum, P.I. (1986), and Father Dowling Mysteries (1987). Stevens appears in 34 episodes of the prime-time soap opera, Flamingo Road (1981–82), as Lute-Mae Sanders, the former madam of a brothel. From 1989 to 1990, she had a role on Santa Barbara as Phyllis Blake. Her string of appearances in 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). Her television career continued into the 2000s when she appeared in an episode of Twenty Good Years (2006).
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 produced and directed two films, The Ranch (1989) and The American Heroine (1979). In 1999, she co-wrote a novel titled, Razzle Dazzle, about a Memphis-born singer named Johnny Gault.
Stevens died from Alzheimer’s disease in Los Angeles, California on February 17, 2023, at the age of 84 years.
Personal life
In late 1976 Stevens purchased a ranch in Methow Valley near Carlton, Washington, on the eastern edge of the Cascade Mountains. She also opened an art gallery and bakery in the nearby small town of Twisp, Washington. She sold her Methow Valley ranch in 1988.
In 1983 Stevens began a long-term relationship with rock guitarist Bob Kulick; they share Stevens’ Beverly Hills home. In 2005 Stevens was awarded the Reel Cowboys Silver Spur Award for her notable contribution to the Western genre.
Films
Say One for Me (1959)
The Blue Angel (1959) (uncredited)
Li’l Abner (1959), as Appassionata Von Climax
Man-Trap (1961)
Too Late Blues (1961)
Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962)
The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (1963)
The Nutty Professor (1963)
Advance to the Rear (1964)
Synanon (1965)
The Secret of My Success (1965)
The Silencers (1966)
Rage (1966)
How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968)
Sol Madrid (1968)
Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968)
The Mad Room (1969)
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
A Town Called Bastard (1971)
Stand Up and Be Counted (1972)
Slaughter (1972)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972), as Linda Rogo
Arnold (1973)
Las Vegas Lady (1975)
Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975)
Nickelodeon (1976)
Mister Deathman (1977)
The Night They Took Miss Beautiful (1977)
The Manitou (1978)
Wacko (1982)
Ladies Night (1983)
Chained Heat (1983)
A Masterpiece of Murder (1986)
The Longshot (1986)
Monster in the Closet (1987)
Exiled in America (1990)
Mom (1990)
Down the Drain (1990)
The Terror Within II (1990)
Exiled in America (1990)
Last Call (1991)
South Beach (1992)
The Nutt House (1992)
Eye of the Stranger (1993)
Little Devils: The Birth (1993)
Hard Drive (1994)
Point of Seduction: Body Chemistry III (1994)
Molly & Gina (1994)
Star Hunter (1995) (V)
Illicit Dreams (1995)
The Granny (1995)
Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure (1995)
Virtual Combat (1996)
Bikini Hotel (1997)
Invisible Mom (1997)
Size ‘Em Up (2001)
The Long Ride Home (2003)
Blessed (2004)
Glass Trap (2005)
Hell to Pay (2005)
Popstar (2005)
Television
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960), “Craig’s Will”
Johnny Ringo (1960), “Uncertain Vengeance”
Hawaiian Eye (1960), “Kakua Woman”
Bonanza (1960), “Silent Thunder”
Riverboat (1960), “Zigzag”
General Electric Theater (1960), “The Graduation Dress”
General Electric Theater (1961), “The Great Alberti”
Follow the Sun (1961), “Conspiracy of Silence”
Frontier Circus (1962), “The Balloon Girl”
Ben Casey (1964), 2 episodes
In Broad Daylight (1971), TV movie
Ghost Story (1972), “The Dead We Leave Behind”
Hec Ramsey (1972), “Hangman’s Wages”
Climb an Angry Mountain (1972), TV movie
Linda (1973), TV movie
Banacek (1973), “Ten Thousand Dollars a Page”
The Day the Earth Moved (1974), TV movie
Honky Tonk (1974), TV movie
Police Story (1975), “The Losing Game”
Wonder Woman (1975), “The New Original Wonder Woman”
Kiss Me, Kill Me (1976), TV movie
Wanted: The Sundance Woman (1976), TV movie
The New Love Boat (1977), TV movie, The Love Boat pilot
Charlie Cobb: Nice Night for a Hanging (1977), TV movie
Murder in Peyton Place (1977), TV movie
The Night They Took Miss Beautiful (1977), TV movie
The Oregon Trail (1977), “Hannah’s Girl”[N 2]
Cruise Into Terror (1978), TV movie
The Jordan Chance (1978), TV movie
Express to Terror (1979), TV movie
Hart to Hart (1979), TV movie, Hart to Hart pilot
The French Atlantic Affair (1979), miniseries
Friendships, Secrets and Lies (1979), TV movie
Make Me an Offer (1980), TV movie
Flamingo Road (1980), TV movie, pilot
Children of Divorce (1980), TV movie
Twirl (1981), TV movie
Flamingo Road (1981–1982), 34 episodes
Matt Houston (1983), “Whose Party Is It Anyway?”
The Love Boat (1983)
Women of San Quentin (1983), TV movie
Newhart (1983), 2 episodes
Fantasy Island (1983), 2 episodes
Amazons (1984), TV movie
No Man’s Land (1984), TV movie
Hotel (1984), “Flesh and Blood”
Highway to Heaven (1984), “Help Wanted: Angel”
Night Court (1984), “Harry and the Madam”
Murder, She Wrote (1985), “Funeral at Fifty-Mile”
The History of White People in America: Volume II (1986), TV movie
A Masterpiece of Murder (1986), TV movie
Magnum, P.I. (1986), “Find Me a Rainbow”
Tales from the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson (1987), TV movie
Adventures Beyond Belief (1987), TV movie
Tales from the Hollywood Hills: A Table at Ciro’s (1987), TV movie
A Fatal Confession: A Father Dowling Mystery (1987), TV movie
Father Dowling Mysteries (1987), “Fatal Confession”
Man Against the Mob (1988), TV movie
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1988), “Twist”
Jake Spanner, Private Eye (1989), TV movie
Santa Barbara (1989–1990)
Dream On (1990), “Over Your Dead Body”
In the Heat of the Night (1991), “A Woman Much Admired”
Dangerous Curves (1992), “In the Name of Love”
The Commish (1993), “Eastbridge Boulevard”
Burke’s Law (1994), “Who Killed the Romance?”
Attack of the 5 Ft. 2 In. Women (1994), TV movie
Highlander: The Series (1995), “Vendetta”
Dave’s World (1995), “The Mommies”
Subliminal Seduction (1996), TV movie
Renegade (1996), “Love Hurts”
Arli$$ (1996), “What About the Fans?”
Silk Stalkings (1996), “When She Was Bad”
In Cold Blood (1996), miniseries
General Hospital (1996, 1999)
The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! (1997), TV movie
Nash Bridges (1997), “Deliverance”
The Christmas List (1997), TV movie
Viper (1998), “The Getaway”
By Dawn’s Early Light (2000), TV movie
Strip Mall (2001)
Twenty Good Years (2006), “The Crying Game”
As director
The American Heroine (1979)
The Ranch (1989)
In 1962, Stevens starred opposite Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls!. Later that year, she portrayed Jerry Lewis’s love interest in The Nutty Professor.
Stevens appeared in dozens of TV shows and was a regular on the 1981-1982 primetime soap opera Flamingo Road.
Stevens died from Alzheimer’s disease in Los Angeles, California on February 17, 2023, at the age of 84 years.
Films include
Popstar (2005)
Hell to Pay (2005)
Glass Trap (2005)
Blessed (2004)
The Long Ride Home (2003)
Size ‘Em Up (2001)
Invisible Mom (1997) (V)
Bikini Hotel (1997)
Virtual Combat (1996)
Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure (1995) (V)
The Granny (1995)
Illicit Dreams (1995)
Star Hunter (1995) (V)
Molly & Gina (1994)
Point of Seduction: Body Chemistry III (1994) (V)
Hard Drive (1994)
Little Devils: The Birth (1993)
Eye of the Stranger (1993)
The Nutt House (1992)
South Beach (1992)
Last Call (1991)
Exiled in America (1990)
The Terror Within II (1990)
Down the Drain (1990)
Mom (1990)
Exiled in America (1990)
Monster in the Closet (1987)
The Longshot (1986)
A Masterpiece of Murder (1986)
Chained Heat (1983)
Ladies Night (1983)
Wacko (1983)
The Manitou (1978)
Mister Deathman (1977)
Nickelodeon (1976)
Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975)
Las Vegas Lady (1975)
Arnold (1973)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972), as Linda Rogo
Slaughter (1972)
Stand Up and Be Counted (1972)
A Town Called Hell (1971)
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
The Mad Room (1969)
Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968)
Sol Madrid (1968)
How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968)
Rage (1966)
The Silencers (1966)
The Secret of My Success (1965)
Synanon (1965)
Advance to the Rear (1964)
The Nutty Professor (1963)
The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (1963)
Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962)
Too Late Blues (1961)
Man-Trap (1961)
Li’l Abner (1959), as Appassionata Von Climax
The Blue Angel (1959)
Say One for Me (1959)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia