Stella Stevens, who co-starred alongside Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls! and Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor, has passed away at the age of 84, according to family members.
According to her son, she had been in a hospice for some time due to Alzheimer’s disease.
In addition, she is famous for her performance in the action film The Poseidon Adventure.
Stevens has also worked on television series, including Murder She Wrote and Magnum, P.I.
Maria Calabrese, Stella’s friend, and manager said,
“It was an honor and a delight to have worked with Stella, who was one of the kindest and talented individuals.”
Estelle Caro Eggleston was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, in 1938. At the age of 16, she married electrician Noble Herman Stevens and gave birth to her sole child, Andrew.
She divorced two years later and began modeling and acting.
20th Century Fox signed her after discovering her performing at her college in Memphis, Tennessee. Afterward, the studio dropped her, but Paramount signed her.
Stevens earned a Golden Globe for her breakthrough performance as a chorus girl in Say One for Me, a 1959 film starring Bing Crosby and Debbie Reynolds.
Stevens stated that she did not like the storyline for Girls! Girls! Girls!, in which she starred with Elvis Presley in 1962, but Paramount informed her that she was contractually obligated to do it.
They had assured her she would co-star in Too Late Blues with 1950s Oscar-winning hunk Montgomery Clift, but Clift was eventually replaced.
Stevens portrayed a student of Jerry Lewis’ socially awkward professor in one of her most remembered appearances, the sci-fi comedy The Nutty Professor from 1963.
He concocts a potion to convert himself into a captivating hunk.
Stevens also portrayed one-half of a newlywed couple in The Poseidon Adventure, a 1972 film about a shipwreck that became one of the year’s biggest hits. Her character had a horrific demise.
Stevens modeled for Playboy many times and was January 1960’s Playmate of the Month.
Stevens worked continuously in television during the 1970s and 1980s, appearing in Hart to Hart, The Love Boat, and Wonder Woman, in which she portrayed a Nazi judo champion who believed she could defeat Lynda Carter’s title character.
She also directed two films featuring her son, The American Heroine (1979) and The Ranch (1989). Bob Kulick, Stevens’ second spouse and partner of 37 years, passed away in May 2020.
His brother, Bruce, a former guitarist for the American rock band Kiss, tweeted: “My brother’s lifelong companion, the legendary actress Stella Stevens, died away this morning after a long illness. Today, she is finally reunited with Bob.
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