Inger Stevens

Inger Stevens, born Ingrid Stensland on October 18, 1934, in Stockholm, Sweden, was a Swedish-born American actress who worked across film, stage, and television, earning a Golden Globe for her work in the latter medium. She died on April 30, 1970.

Stevens was the eldest child of Per Gustaf and Lisbet Stensland. Her mother left the family when Stevens was six, taking her youngest son Peter with her. Her father subsequently emigrated to the United States, leaving Stevens and her brother Ola in the care of the family maid and later with an aunt on Lidingö, an island near Stockholm. In 1944, Stevens and her brother joined their father and his new American wife in New York City, where her father was completing a PhD in education at Columbia University. The family later relocated to Manhattan, Kansas, where her father taught at Kansas State University, and Stevens attended Manhattan High School. At fifteen she left for Kansas City, where she worked in burlesque shows. Returning to New York City at eighteen, she took classes at the Actors Studio while working as a chorus girl and in the Garment District.

Her Broadway career spanned 1956 to 1961, with appearances in three productions: the comedy Debut in 1956, the comedy Roman Candle in 1960, and Mary, Mary. Concurrent with her stage work, Stevens built an extensive television résumé, appearing in episodes of Kraft Television Theatre, Studio One, Playhouse 90, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents before her film career accelerated. Her first significant film role came in Man on Fire (1957), opposite Bing Crosby. Starring roles followed in Cry Terror! (1958), alongside James Mason and Rod Steiger, and The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959), opposite Harry Belafonte.

Stevens reached her widest audience through the television series The Farmer's Daughter (1963–1966), in which she played Katy Holstrum opposite William Windom across 101 episodes. Prior to that series, she had appeared in episodes of Bonanza, Route 66, The Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Eleventh Hour, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, Sam Benedict, and The Aquanauts, among others. After The Farmer's Daughter was cancelled in 1966, Stevens appeared in A Guide for the Married Man (1967), and in Hang 'Em High, 5 Card Stud, and Madigan, all released in 1968. Her final theatrical film was A Dream of Kings (1969), opposite Anthony Quinn. Her last completed project was the television film Run, Simon, Run (1970), with Burt Reynolds. At the time of her death she was working on the detective drama series The Most Deadly Game, in which she had appeared in one episode as Vanessa Smith.

Stevens's first marriage was to her agent, Anthony Soglio, from 1955 to 1957. After her death, Ike Jones, identified as the first Black graduate of UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television, stated that he and Stevens had secretly married in Mexico in 1961. The claim was disputed due to the absence of a marriage license, the couple's maintenance of separate residences, and their filing of tax documents as single individuals. However, during the settlement of Stevens's estate, her brother Carl O. Stensland confirmed in court that Stevens had concealed the marriage out of concern for her career. Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner A. Edward Nichols ruled in Jones's favor and appointed him administrator of her estate. A photograph of the two together at a banquet in 1968 also exists.

In January 1966, California governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown appointed Stevens to the advisory board of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. She also served as chairman of the California Council for Retarded Children. Her aunt was Karin Stensland Junker, author of The Child in the Glass Ball.

On the morning of April 30, 1970, Stevens's roommate and companion Lola McNally discovered her on the kitchen floor of her Hollywood Hills home. McNally reported that Stevens briefly opened her eyes and attempted to speak but could not. Stevens died in the ambulance en route to the hospital. Los Angeles County coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi attributed her death to acute barbiturate poisoning, and the manner of death was ruled a suicide.