‘Stella Stevens: The Last Starlet’ Review: A Loving, Insightful Documentary Tribute to an Underrated Actress

Andrew Stevens pays loving but not hagiographic tribute to his late mother, famed actress Stella Stevens, in his documentary recently showcased at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. The film convincingly makes the case that its subject, best known for her performances in such pictures as The Poseidon Adventure and The Nutty Professor, is severely underrated, both as an actress and social activist. Stella Stevens: The Last Starlet aims to rectify that perception and, thanks to numerous clips of her work and effusive commentary by the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Vivica A. Fox, it succeeds beautifully.

The filmmaker (who appears frequently) admits that his relationship with his mother was rocky, to say the least, in the early years. Born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, Stevens got married at age 16 and had Andrew, her first and only child, six months later. The marriage soon dissolved, and when she moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career, she took Andrew to California with her illegally. His father and grandfather later showed up and spirited him away, resulting in an ugly custody battle and Andrew not having a real relationship with his mother until he turned 16.

Stevens was soon signed to 20th Century Fox, where she was groomed to be a starlet in the mold of Marilyn Monroe and Mamie Van Doren. Her sexpot image was further confirmed when she appeared as a Playboy centerfold, though she had desperately tried to purchase the nude images back from Hugh Hefner, who refused.

Her career quickly took off thanks to such films as Li’l Abner, in which she played the wonderfully named “Appasionata Von Climax,” and the musical Say One for Me with Bing Crosby, for which she received a Golden Globe award for New Star of the Year.

“Some of the most fun parts I’ve played are nymphomaniacs,” Stevens amusingly points out in one of many interviews featured here. Some of them are shown via archival clips from various talk show appearances, while others are recreated using a lookalike actress (Lindsie Kongsore). While the device is jarring at first, it admittedly breathes life into Stevens’ words. But the filmmaker gets too carried away with it at times, as when he unnecessarily uses an actor to play a film critic reading an excerpt from a review.

There are plenty of juicy anecdotes and revelations in the documentary, one of the most priceless being Stevens’ account of co-star Bobby Darin getting a much noticeable erection while they shot a kissing scene. She also reveals that she had no desire to appear with Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls! and only agreed to do it after she was promised that she would get to play opposite Montgomery Clift in her next film. The Clift project never materialized, and she could never bring herself to watch the Presley one.

We learn of her many romances, including an affair with the notorious and very much married Hollywood fixer Sidney Korshak and a lengthy relationship with actor Skip Ward, who took financial advantage of her and was frequently unfaithful.

The documentary makes a strong case for Stevens’ talent — particularly her formidable comic chops, as illustrated in numerous clips of her work, including from an episode of Bonanza for which she won acclaim. She held her own opposite Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor and sparkled in the old-fashioned comedy How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life opposite Dean Martin, with whom she had previously appeared in the Matt Helm spy spoof The Silencers. She received critical acclaim for her exuberant turn in Sam Peckinpah’s 1970 The Ballad of Cable Hogue, though the film was a flop. When she did appear in hits, such as the hugely popular disaster pic The Poseidon Adventure, it didn’t give her career much traction.  

She later became an iconic figure for Black audiences, thanks to her groundbreaking interracial love scene with Jim Brown in the blaxploitation hit Slaughter and her campy villainous turn in Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold. But what she really wanted to do, as they say, was direct. She finally got her chance in 1989 with an indie feature called The Ranch, starring her son Andrew (he later returned the favor, directing her in the 1991 B-movie The Terror Within II), and a feminist-themed documentary, The American Heroine, which was never released.

Besides the ample clips from her roles and television appearances, the documentary includes fascinating home movies, personal photographs, and insightful commentary from various figures including film historians Leonard Maltin and Courtney Joyner. But it’s Tarantino who unsurprisingly proves the highlight, articulately gushing about Stevens’ performances with the passion of a true fan. (Introducing The Last Starlet at the festival, Andrew admitted that he basically handed the ball to Tarantino and let him run with it.)

While Stevens’ big-screen career eventually fizzled, she never stopped working, appearing in dozens of direct-to-video movies and TV series until her final appearance in something called Megaconda in 2010. “If the idea of being an actress is to work, she worked. She worked a lot,” Tarantino points out.

Her final days were sad ones, as she slowly succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease until her death at 84 in 2023. Much to the consternation of her son and her many fans, she was not included in the Academy Awards’ annual “In Memoriam” segment and never received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The latter is a rebuff that should be corrected — especially if Stella Stevens: The Last Starlet gets the exposure it deserves.