Editor's Note: Movie and TV star Stella Stevens, known to friends and family as Estelle Eggleston while growing up in Mississippi and Memphis, passed away on Friday, February 18th at age 84. This column originally appeared in 2012.
Dear Vance: Can you tell me whatever became of Stella Stevens? She was born in Memphis, starred in movies with Elvis Presley, and then seemingly vanished. — J.O., Memphis.
Dear J.O.: Let me begin this saga by saying that no actress named "Stella Stevens" was born in Memphis. That much is certain. Now, just where she did come from depends on what you read. It seems that Stella’s long and dramatic life story is hard to pin down. But I’ll do my best to stick with the facts, as I know them.
On October 1, 1938, Estelle Eggleston was born in the tiny Mississippi community of Hot Coffee. Other sources say her birthplace was actually Yazoo City. All I can say for certain is that she wasn’t born in Memphis, and her name wasn’t Stella Stevens. Not yet, anyway. She was the only child of Thomas and Dovey Eggleston. Her mother also went by Estelle, when she felt like it, which makes any research on the young girl even more confusing than it should be.
A vintage postcard shows little Estelle Eggleston posing with a paper moon — perfect symbolism for a woman whose later name (and career) would be associated with stars.
The Egglestons came to Memphis when little Estelle was only 4, moving into a cozy home on Carrington, just a few doors east of Highland. The Park Theatre was practically in their backyard, and I wonder if the young girl ever dreamed that crowds would someday pack that neighborhood moviehouse to see her on the silver screen.
As best I can determine, her father worked as an insurance salesman, with offices in the Sterick Building, and her mother was a nurse. Three different schools in Memphis can claim the star-to-be as an alumna: St. Anne’s Catholic School on Highland, then Sacred Heart School on Jefferson, and finally Memphis Technical High School on Poplar. Oh, and she later took night classes at what was then called Memphis State College.
In 1954, when she was just 16, Estelle married an electrician named Noble Herman Stephens. They were divorced just three years later, but that short-lived union resulted in two things. First of all, there was a son, Andrew Stevens, and you’ll hear more about him later. And second, Estelle Eggleston changed her name to the one we know today: Stella Stevens. She didn’t like “Stephens” because people kept pronouncing it, she claimed, as “Steffens” and she especially liked Stella because it meant “star.”
It’s interesting (and conflicting) how she became famous. According to her “official” biography on her website (I’ll discuss that in a moment, if you’ll be patient), “it was a glowing Memphis Press-Scimitar review of her appearance in a Memphis State production of Bus Stop that kickstarted her career.” Other sources say she was spotted by a talent agent while modeling the latest frocks at Goldsmith’s department store.
The future star on the porch of her home on Carrington.
At any rate, Stella was lured to Hollywood, where she began her long career in show business by playing a chorus girl in the 1959 Bing Crosby musical Say One for Me. It was a bit part, but it must have been an important one, since it earned her a Golden Globe for “Most Promising Newcomer - Female.”
Other roles quickly followed, and Stella managed to attract attention in other ways besides the movies. In January 1960, she was Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month, appearing in other pictorials later, and at least one publication called her “one of the most photographed women in the world.” I thought it was especially interesting that the Internet Movie Database list of her “trademark” attributes don’t mention her acting skills at all. Instead, IMDB notes her “platinum blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, voluptuous figure, and seductive deep voice.”
I can’t tell you how many times the same things have been said about the Lauderdales.
Stella never starred in her own motion picture, but throughout the 1960s, she certainly managed to co-star with some of the biggest names in show business. In 1962, she joined her fellow Memphian Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls! It was a typical Elvis vehicle, with him singing and surrounded by lovely women. Stella was apparently disappointed with that movie, complaining, “I played the role of the girl who got dumped for the prettier girl,” and saying she never watched the movie after it came out.
(And what was Elvis’ opinion of his beautiful co-star? It’s hard to say. She didn’t earn a single mention in Peter Guralnik’s 1,300-page, two-part biography of the King of Rock-and-Roll.)
A family snapshot shows Estelle on the beach at Panama City, Florida, in the 1950s.
Then there was Dean Martin in The Silencers, Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor, Jason Robards in The Ballad of Cable Hogue — the list just goes on. My goodness, she kept busy.
About this time, I might add that she stayed in the headlines for a more unfortunate reason. Just a few years after her divorce, she was involved in a prolonged custody battle for her son, Andrew. By this time, she was a bona fide star, so the newspapers breathlessly reported on the saga of the starlet who wanted her son in Hollywood, and the father who demanded that he live a “normal” life in Memphis. In the end, Stella won custody, and Andrew came west. The boy began his Hollywood career as an actor (appearing in four movies with his mother), but later moved onto much bigger things. These days, he’s president of the Stevens Entertainment Group, which has produced or financed almost 200 movies. At one time, he was even married to Kate Jackson, one of the original Charlie’s Angels.
But let’s get back to Stella. Perhaps her best-remembered role is that of Linda Rogo in The Poseidon Adventure, a tremendously successful disaster film, where she played the “refreshingly outspoken ex-prostitute” married to the rough-and-tumble character played by Ernest Borgnine. Did she (and Ernest) survive after that ship rolled over? Well, I won’t give it away.
“It was hard as a ‘sexpot,’ as I was labeled in the 1960s and ’70s, to have people take me seriously. They would rather see me without my clothes on.”
“it was hard as a ‘sexpot,’ as I was labeled in the 1960s and ’70s, to have people take me seriously. They would rather see me without my clothes on.” Throughout the 1970s, it was hard to switch on the television without finding Stella Stevens guest-starring on the biggest shows of the day: Wonder Woman, The Love Boat, Police Story, Newhart, Magnum P.I., Fantasy Island, and dozens of others. During the next decade, she had recurring roles on such long-running hit series as Santa Barbara, Burke’s Law, and even General Hospital. Her film and TV career didn’t begin to wind down until the 1990s.
Now, you’re probably wondering by now, where did such a big star live in Memphis? As far as I can tell, she never owned a house here. She would come “home” from time to time to visit her parents, still dwelling in that little house on Carrington, and later moving to the Sherwood Forest neighborhood. Her father had passed away in 1991, so those visits ended with the death of her mother in 2002.
Besides, why live in Memphis, when you can hang out in a swinging Sixties pad in Beverly Hills, California? Stella spent a few million bucks to buy that home, along with a horse ranch outside the little town of Twirp. Between film roles, she spent most of her days on the West Coast. In the early 1980s, she met Bob Kulick, an accomplished guitarist best-known for his studio work with KISS and Meat Loaf, and formed a lifelong relationship.
Stella was much more than an actress. This may surprise readers, but she was an accomplished singer. In the 1960s, she joined a vocal group called “The Skip-Jacks.” You’ve heard their work without knowing it, since she performed the theme song for The Flintstones and The Patty Duke Show. She also tried her hand behind the scenes, producing and directing two movies, The American Heroine (1979) and The Ranch (1989). If you’ve never heard of those, well, that’s not Stella’s fault, is it?
In later life, Stella told an interviewer she hoped to direct more movies, but “it was hard as a ‘sexpot,’ as I was labeled in the 1960s and ’70s, to have people take me seriously. They would rather see me without my clothes on.” She came out with her own line of fragrances, called “Sexy,” and in 1999 published a novel, Razzle Dazzle, described as “a sexy romp through the dazzling decades of the sixties, seventies, and eighties.” Hmmm — was it autobiographical? She wouldn’t say.
She also launched her own website, stellastevens.biz, where she stayed in touch with fans and sold notecards and autographed photos. The last time I checked , however, it had not been updated in years. There’s a sad reason for that.
Stella Stevens, now 81 years old, is suffering from dementia and confined to an assisted living facility in California, still cared for by Bob Kulick all these years later. Her filmography on IMBD lists more than 60 movie roles and 80 television appearances. Little Estelle Eggleston from Mississippi, who wanted to be a star, certainly got her wish
