Rachel Stephens: Movies & Filmography

Rachel Lou Slagel, known professionally as Rachel Stephens, was an American television, stage, and motion picture actress born on October 29, 1930, in Mount Carmel, Illinois. She was the daughter of Wilma (née Stephens) and railroad engineer Lewis Glenn "Red" Slagel, and she adopted her mother's maiden name for her stage career. Raised in Fairfield, Illinois, she attended Fairfield Grade School and Fairfield Community High before pursuing higher education at Indiana University Bloomington, where she earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees in theatre arts by 1953, becoming the first member of her family to enter the theatrical profession. Before transitioning to film, Stephens worked as a CBS research assistant and built her career as a television actress, which led to her being signed by a major studio without a screen test. In May 1956, she was signed to a film contract by Twentieth Century Fox, making her film debut as a nurse in Bigger Than Life (1956) alongside James Mason and Barbara Rush. Her subsequent film appearances included Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957) directed by Nunnally Johnson, The True Story of Jesse James (1957) where she played Anne James, and From the Terrace (1960) with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, the latter earning a Golden Globe nomination. Her final film role came in 1994's Ri¢hie Ri¢h as Richie's secretary. Stephens maintained a vibrant stage career throughout her life, performing as a reporter in The Best Things In Life Are Free and as Hope Lange's sister in Bus Stop (1955). She later appeared at the Arlington Park Theater in Chicago in 1972 alongside Jo Anne Worley in George Axelrod's comedy Goodbye Charlie, and toured with Van Johnson in Send Me No Flowers in 1976. In 1980 she starred as Toby, an aging beauty, in Neil Simon's The Gingerbread Lady, and in 2003 she portrayed Ruby in Twilight Serenade. In Hollywood, she also had the unique duty of substituting for female stars in screen tests of male prospective actors. In her personal life, Stephens dated actor Nico Minardos until they split in January 1959. She married fellow stage actor Dennis Sook in 1979 after meeting him in 1978 during joint appearances in dinner theater productions with Van Johnson; the couple remained married until his death in October 2017. The 1971 Los Angeles earthquake prompted her to relocate back to her native Chicago. Stephens died on December 14, 2018, at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois, at age 88, and her remains were interred at Maple Hill Cemetery in Fairfield alongside her husband.