LOS ANGELES — Actress, 100, with Titanic comeback
Gloria Stuart, the 1930s Hollywood beauty who gave up acting for 30 years and later became the oldest Academy Award acting nominee as the spunky survivor in Titanic, has died. She was 100.
Stuart died of respiratory failure Sunday night at her Los Angeles home, her daughter, Sylvia Thompson, said Monday.
In her youth, Stuart was a blond beauty who starred in B pictures as well as some higher-profile ones such as The Invisible Man, Busby Berkeley’s Gold Diggers of 1935 and two Shirley Temple movies, Poor Little Rich Girl and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. But by the mid-1940s she had retired.
She resumed acting in the 1970s, doing occasional television and film work. But Stuart’s later career would have remained largely a footnote if James Cameron had not chosen her for his 1997 epic about the doomed luxury liner that struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in 1912.
Stuart co-starred as Rose Calvert, the 101-year-old survivor played by Kate Winslet as a young woman. Both earned Oscar nominations, Winsletas best actress and Stuart as supporting actress.
It was the first time in Oscar history that two performers were nominated for playing the same character in the same film, and it made the 87-year-old Stuart the oldest acting nominee in history.
Stuart is survived by her daughter, four grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 09/28/2010