Elaine Stewart, 1930-2011

The death has been announced of actress Elaine Stewart, at the age of 81. Stewart's career never became quite that big, but she had a memorable role in The Bad and the Beautiful, from which the production still above (with Gilbert Roland) is taken. In The Bad and the Beautiful, Stewart plays a young actress who winds up in the arms of Kirk Douglas, much to the dismay of Lana Turner, who thought that Douglas was her boyfriend. I've also recommended Stewart in A Slight Case of Larceny. I'm not a huge fan of musicals, but you can also see her in the MGM musical Brigadoon.

The reason why Stewart's movie career fizzled is in part due to her marriage to Merrill Heatter, who survives Stewart after a marriage of 46 years. Heatter was a game show producer, most famously of The Hollywood Squares, and when Heatter and his business partner came up with Gambit, a game show based on blackjack, Heatter used Stewart as one of the card dealers assisting host Alex Trebek.