RIP Gloria Stuart

I have to start this post by saying that I really do hate James Cameron's Titanic. Overlong and overwrought, it made its millions by appealing to teenage girls who saw it over and over because of it's "romantic" storyline. Well I say "Bullcrap!" Only slightly more contrived than the plot of Cameron's Avatar, Titanic exploits a real-life tragedy for a lame romance not even worthy of the worst Harlequin Romance novel. How sad then, that an actress with a 7 decade career is best remembered for a supporting role in it?

Stuart made her film debut as Doris in 1932's Street of Women, a cheesy soap opera about a cheating doctor. She went on to appear in several Universal classics, including James Whale's The Old Dark House and Whale's 1933 version of H.G. Welles' The Invisible Man.

She appeared in the Shirley Temple classic Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and almost 50 years later in Richard Benjamin's hilarious salute to 50's TV, My Favorite Year. In 1991, in a nod to her role in the original film, she guest starred on the short-lived TV series "The Invisible Man" and also appeared in guest spots on "Murder, She Wrote;" "Touched By an Angel" and "General Hospital."

Ms. Stuart never garnered the fame of many of her contemporaries, but then not many of them had careers as long as hers. We should all be so lucky to do what we love for as long as she did. Gloria Stuart was 100 years old and the only cast member of Titanic who was actually alive when the ship sank.

More, anon.

Prospero

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