Stella Stevens, the actor best known for her roles in The Nutty Professor and The Poseidon Adventure, died on Friday after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, her son confirmed to Deadline. She was 84 years old.
Stevens began her career as a model, and was featured as a Playboy centerfold in January 1960. According to Deadline, she was discovered in her hometown of Memphis and brought on for a screen test at 20th Century Fox before contracting with Paramount and later Columbia. She received a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer for her first role, the 1959 film Say One For Me, also appearing in Li’l Abner that same year.
Throughout the 1960s, Stevens appeared in films alongside some of Hollywood’s most notable leading men, including Bobby Darin in John Cassavetes’ Too Late Blues, Elvis in Girls! Girls! Girls!, and Dean Martin in How to Save a Marriage And Ruin Your Life. Most notably, she starred opposite Jerry Lewis in 1963’s The Nutty Professor, a film that was selected for the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2004.
She continued to work steadily throughout the ’70s and ’80s in both film and television. Her most notable credit of that period was The Poseidon Adventure with Ernest Borgnine, Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, and more. The film was among the highest-grossing of its time and was nominated for eight Academy Awards.
In her television career, Stevens starred in the primetime soap opera Flamingo Road and had recurring roles on Santa Barbara and General Hospital. She also made guest appearances on series like The Love Boat, Night Court, Murder, She Wrote, and more.
Stevens was preceded in death by her longtime partner, rock guitarist Bob Kulick, who passed away in 2020. She is survived by her son Andrew Stevens and three grandchildren.