"I believed it would save me from the label of 'sexpot,' which would have totally stomped me into the ground."įilm critic and historian Leonard Maltin is among those grateful for Stevens' decision. "I've always specialized in comedy," Stevens told The Commercial Appeal in 2002. She chafed against stereotypical "bombshell" roles. She was a comical nun in the 1968 hit "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows" a comical prostitute in Sam Peckinpah's "The Ballad of Cable Hogue," in 1970 and a semi-comical seasick ex-prostitute married to Ernest Borgnine in the blockbuster disaster movie, "The Poseidon Adventure," which was the second-highest grossing film of 1972, behind "The Godfather." In addition to the Jekyll-and-Hyde-inspired "The Nutty Professor," in which Stevens appeared as the voluptuous but innocent Stella Purdy opposite Lewis' lovelorn Professor Julius Kelp (and Kelp's oily alter ego, Buddy Love), her first decade of credits included Cassavetes' jazz-themed "Too Late Blues" "Girls! Girls Girls!" with Elvis Minnelli's "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," which inspired a hit television series and "The Silencers," one of a series of spy spoofs starring Dean Martin as secret agent Matt Helm. She was cast as bombshell "Appassionata Von Climax" in one of her first films, the comic strip-inspired musical, "Li'l Abner," in 1959, but by the mid-1960s she had appeared in comedies, crime dramas and Westerns. If Stevens' looks got her in the Hollywood door, she resisted staying in one place once she got in. Stella Stevens (right) with Laurel Goodwin and Elvis Presley in a publicity portrait for "Girls! Girls! Girls!" In a 1994 interview, she told The Commercial Appeal that her mother tracked her down at a Memphis theater and pulled by her ear from a screening of "The Outlaw," a 1943 Western with Jane Russell that had been condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency for its provocative content. Stevens was no stranger to strong reactions to public sexiness. 27 on its list of the "100 Sexiest Stars of the 20th Century." ( Raquel Welch, who died Wednesday at 82, was ranked third.) Playboy, at least, remained consistent: In 1998, the magazine ranked Stevens at No. In fact, Stevens also would appear in Playboy pictorials in 19, by which time the scowls had been replaced by jokes: "Stella Strips Again" was the nonchalant Press-Scimitar headline. We hope Miss Stevens has the force of character to make this mistake the last of the sort." On Christmas Day, 1959, the Memphis Press-Scimitar responded to Stevens' appearance as Playboy's Playmate of the Month with an editorial titled "Stella's Mistake," which sniffed: "We are sorry to see Stella Stevens fall victim to the cruel press-agentry of Hollywood. They chronicled her accomplishments with a mixture of pride and prudishness. Memphis newspapers needed no such encouragement to follow Stevens as she pursued fame beyond the Bluff City in the wake of another young hometown hero turned movie star, Elvis Presley. Tiny Andy - the future actor/director Andrew Stevens - gets a hug from his movie star mother, Stella Stevens, after his performance in a play at Holy Rosary School on May 30, 1961. The couple married when Stevens was only 16, and were divorced by 1957, leading to an acrimonious child-custody battle that was highly publicized in the Memphis press before the court ruled in Stevens' favor in 1961. Stevens' death was announced by her son, Andrew Stevens, a successful actor and producer/director who was born in Memphis in 1955 to Stevens and her first and only husband, electrician Nobel Herman Stephens. She also attended Messick Junior High, Sacred Heart High School and Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis), where she studied literature and history and essentially reinvented herself as a glamorous leading lady by dying her hair platinum blond to take the Marilyn Monroe role in a stage production of "Bus Stop." A positive review of her performance in the Memphis Press-Scimitar, the daily evening newspaper, "really started my career" as an actress, Stevens later told The Commercial Appeal. Stevens' last public appearance in her Memphis hometown was in 2002, when she hosted "An Evening with Stella Stevens" as a benefit for her childhood alma mater, St. Jerry Lewis and Stella Stevens starred in the original version of "The Nutty Professor."
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