Connie Stevens (born Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingolia; August 8, 1938)[1] is an American actress and singer. Born in Brooklyn to musician parents, Stevens was raised there until age 12, when she was sent to live with family friends in rural Missouri. In 1953, at age 15, Stevens relocated with her father to Los Angeles.
She began her career in 1957, making her feature film debut in Young and Dangerous, before releasing her debut album, Concetta, the following year. She had a supporting role in the musical comedy Rock-A-Bye Baby (1958) opposite Jerry Lewis, followed by the drama film The Party Crashers (also 1958) opposite Frances Farmer.
Stevens gained widespread recognition for her portrayal of "Cricket" Blake on the ABC TV Warner Brothers series Hawaiian Eye, beginning in 1959 opposite Robert Conrad and Anthony Eisley. She garnered concurrent musical success when her single "Sixteen Reasons" became a national radio hit, peaking at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the UK Singles Chart in 1960. Stevens continued to appear in film and television throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as well as performing as a musical nightclub act.[2]
Stevens' later film roles include in the comedy Tapeheads (1988) and the drama Love Is All There Is (1996). In 2009, Stevens made her directorial debut with the feature film Saving Grace B. Jones, which she also wrote and produced, based partly on elements of her own childhood.
Early life
Stevens was born Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingolia in Brooklyn, New York, United States,[1] the daughter of musician Peter Ingolia (known as Teddy Stevens) and singer Eleanor McGinley. Stevens is of Italian and Irish descent.[3] She adopted her father's stage name of Stevens as her own. Her parents divorced and she lived with her grandparents and attended Catholicboarding schools.[3] Actor John Megna was her maternal half-brother.[4]
At the age of 12, she witnessed a murder while waiting at a bus stop in Brooklyn in 1950-51.[5] The event traumatized Stevens, and she was sent to live with family friends in Boonville, Missouri.[6]
Coming from a musical family, Stevens joined the singing group called The Fourmost[7] with Tony Butala, who went on to fame as founder of The Lettermen. Stevens moved to Los Angeles with her father in 1953.[citation needed]
Career
Early films
Her first notable film role was in Young and Dangerous (1957) with Mark Damon, a low budget teen movie. She also was in Eighteen and Anxious (1957); and an episode of The Bob Cummings Show ("Bob Goes Hillbilly"). In December 1957 Stevens signed a seven-year contract with Paramount starting at $600 a week going up to $1,500 a week.[8]
Stevens made another film with Damon, The Party Crashers (1958), before Paramount dropped her.
Warner Bros. and Hawaiian Eye
Stevens and James Garner from a 1959 episode of MaverickRobert Conrad and Stevens, 1960
In May 1959, she signed a seven-year contract with Warner Bros. starting at $300 per week.[11] Like many Warners contract players, Stevens was kept busy guest-starring on their regular TV shows such as The Ann Sothern Show, Maverick, Tenderfoot, 77 Sunset Strip and Cheyenne.
First televised on December 23, 1960, she appeared (uncredited) in "The Dresden Doll", Episode 15 of Season 3 of 77 Sunset Strip as her character from Hawaiian Eye, Cricket Blake.
In a televised interview on August 26, 2003, on CNN's Larry King Live, Stevens recounted that while on the set of Hawaiian Eye she was told she had a telephone call from Elvis Presley. "She didn't believe it, but in fact it was Elvis, who invited her to a party and said that he would come to her house and pick her up personally"; they subsequently dated.[13]
Stevens' popularity on the small screen and as a recording star encouraged Warner Bros. to try her in films. She starred in three films for the studio, all opposite Troy Donahue: Parrish (1961), as a rural girl; Susan Slade (1962), playing the title role, an unwed mother; and Palm Springs Weekend (1963), a teen romantic comedy.[17] In 1962 Warner Bros. suspended her briefly for refusing to go on a publicity tour.[18] She performed in Wizard of Oz on stage in Kansas.[19]
Stevens later starred as Wendy Conway in the television sitcom Wendy and Me (1964–1965) with George Burns, who also produced the show with Warner Bros. and played an older man who watched Wendy's exploits upstairs on what appears to be a surreptitious closed-circuit television hook-up in his apartment.[3] She had a percentage of the show, and had three and a half years left on her contract with Warners. She said "I've done the teenage epics... and want to move up into something like Virginia Woolf or Any Wednesday. I want to be a big star but do I have to throw tantrums and behave badly to get there? Can't I just be talented and work hard and be happily married?"[20]
Stevens had the juvenile lead in Never Too Late (1965), released by Warner Bros. She signed a new contract with Warner Bros. to make one film a year for six years.
She reprised her stage performance of Wizard of Oz at Carousel Theatre, California, then followed it with Any Wednesday, at Melodyland, Anaheim California. Stevens was reunited with Jerry Lewis in Way... Way Out (1966).[21]
In the 1970s, Stevens started singing the "Ace Is the Place" jingle on Ace Hardware TV commercials in Southern California, and was a guest on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast a few times.
In the spring of 1977, Stevens appeared in a first-season episode of The Muppet Show.
She also was seen numerous times on the Bob HopeUSO specials, including his Christmas Show from the Persian Gulf (1988).
In 1988, Stevens said "I still want to make movies with Marlon Brando. But first I've got to get hot. That's what I'm trying to do - get hot. I'm still waiting for the big role. I haven't peaked yet."[25]
She elaborated:
I'm a big star all over the world except in Hollywood. I play (nightclubs in) Japan and Hong Kong every Christmas and New Year's... I don't have a hit TV show, I don't have a hit record, I don't have a hit movie, but I created something that people still love. I invented Cricket. There was barely a part written for me. Half the time, I said whatever I wanted. I was everybody's daughter. I was every boy's fantasy girlfriend. Girls wanted to be like me. That good feeling still exists. That's why I'm a big business, with 17 people working for me. I may not be the richest woman in the world, but I do okay. But Hollywood is a different story... There's something wrong when an actress can come off a 'Dynasty' or a 'Falcon Crest' and get a production deal (to star in a mini-series or TV movie) and I can't.[25]
Stevens had a regular role on the sitcom Starting from Scratch (1988). She said at the time, "TV is not my favorite medium; the work is hard, you don't have any life, and I feel like I've already been a champion in it, but the economics of the business is you need momentum to get hot. I'm using this to get me into movies."[25] The show only lasted one season.
In 1997, Stevens wrote, edited, and directed a documentary entitled A Healing, about Red Cross nurses who served during the Vietnam War. The following year it won the title of Best Film at the Santa Clarita International Film Festival. She also co-wrote and directed the thriller Saving Grace B. Jones (2009); it was shot in Boonville and is based on true events that Stevens witnessed there, as a child.[28]
In 1969, Stevens toured with the Bob Hope USO tour to Guam and Southeast Asia.[29]
In 1987, she, Barbara Eden and Lee Greenwood toured with Bob Hope on his USO tour to the Persian Gulf. Among her charitable works, she founded the Windfeather project to award scholarships to Native Americans,[3] and supports CancerGroup.com. In 1991 Stevens received the Lady of Humanities Award from Shriners Hospital and the Humanitarian of the Year Award by the Sons of Italy in Washington, D.C.[30]
Stevens developed her own cosmetic skin care product line, Forever Spring,[3][31][32] and in the 1990s opened the Connie Stevens Garden Sanctuary Day Spa in Los Angeles.[33]
In 1994, accompanied by her two daughters, she issued her first recording in several years, Tradition: A Family at Christmas,[3]
She made nightclub appearances and headlined in major Las Vegas showrooms.
On September 23, 2005, Stevens was elected secretary-treasurer of the Screen Actors Guild, the union's second-highest elected position. She succeeded James Cromwell, who did not seek re-election.[37]
She was married twice during her twenties. Her first husband, from 1963 until their 1966 divorce, was actor James Stacy. Her second husband, from 1967 until they divorced in 1969, was singer Eddie Fisher.[3] She is the mother of actresses Joely Fisher and Tricia Leigh Fisher, and the former stepmother of Todd Fisher and actress Carrie Fisher. Stevens is a half-sister of John Megna through their mother.[40]
^COLUMBIA WANTS DORIS DAY IN FILM: Offers Role in 'Wreck of the Old 97'--Peter Finch to Co-Star in 'Nun's Story" Diane Varsi Hospitalized, Thomas M. Pryor, The New York Times, December 24, 1957: p. 11.
^THE TV SCENE: When Connie Stevens Is on Screen, Things Happen CONNIE STEVENS, Smith, Cecil. Los Angeles Times, February 7, 1960: J2.
^Singer Connie Stevens' New Contract Approved: Agreement With Warner Bros. to Range From $300 to $1250 a Week in Seven Years, Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1959: B1.
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