THERE’S GOT TO BE A MOURNING AFTER…
Actress and perennial Alzheimer’s pick Stella Stevens has died aged 84. Her film career started with promise, winning a Golden Globe for her role in Bing Crosby musical Say One for Me. She followed suit as leading lady to Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls!, by-the-numbers Elvis fare most notable for introducing “Return to Sender” into the King’s repertoire. Her two best-remembered roles were as the love interest to Jerry Lewis’s zany scientist in The Nutty Professor, and the ex-prostitute wife of Ernest Borgnine’s burly detective in disaster romp The Poseidon Adventure, whose fall to her death in the late stages of the film threatens to derail the escape effort from the doomed liner. Her death leaves Gene Hackman and the two child actors as the last remaining Poseidon stars.
Alternating between film and TV earlier in her career, post-Poseidon she focused largely on small-screen roles in various soaps, sitcoms, and dramas. Her first marriage from the 50s birthed actor Andrew Stevens (one of JR’s stooges in Dallas and the killer in a best-forgotten 90s Columbo), decades later she formed a partnership with rock guitarist Bob Kulick, who worked with Kiss and co-wrote SpongeBob anthem “Sweet Victory”. Despite her longtime Alzheimer’s, she outlived Kulick, but the thrill of one more kill comes for Dead Is Dead and LL’s Pool.
Stella Stevens
1 October 1938 – 17 February 2023, aged 84
2 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀 6 POINTS)