Venetia Stevenson (b. March 10, 1938), born Joanna Venetia Invicta Stevenson in London, is a motion picture actress.
Stevenson is the daughter of Oscar nominated director Robert Stevenson and actress Anna Lee. She was born in London in 1938, but moved to Hollywood within a year when her father signed as a director for David Selznick. She was educated in exclusive private schools. When her parents divorced in 1944, she stayed with her father and new stepmother, Mrs. Frances Stevenson. Still, her theatrical debut was with her mother in Liliom, a play produced by the Sombrero Theater, in Phoenix, Arizona, in April 1955 and also with the husband and wife team of Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl.
Stevenson married MGM actor-dancer, Russ Tamblyn, on Valentine's Day in 1956. She was 17 when they wed in the Wayfarers Chapel in Palos Verdes. She was divorced from Tamblyn in April 1957,but the two remained friends. A widely-reproduced photo shows Stevenson calmly walking down a Los Angeles street, seemingly unaware that Tamblyn is doing a spectacular backward aerial handspring a few inches away from her.
Venetia married Don Everly of the singing Everly Brothers in 1962 and she retired from acting. The couple had two daughters, Stacy Everly and Erin Everly both actresses, and a son Edan Everly, a musician. She divorced Don Everly in 1970 and has not remarried.
Stevenson was under contract to RKO Pictures in November 1956.
Hedda Hopper named Stevenson to her list of top movie newcomers in January 1957. Some others selected were Jayne Mansfield, Don Murray, Hope Lange, Jean Seberg, Carroll Baker, and John Kerr. Hopper said of Stevenson, then 18, she is the most purely beautiful of all the new crop of stars. In March 1957 Stevenson was in the cast of the CBS Playhouse 90 production of Charley's Aunt. Tom Tryon, Jackie Coogan, and Jeanette MacDonald are some of the other actors in the television movie. Stevenson plays Peggy McTavish in Darby's Rangers (1958 film), a Warner Bros. release where she is paired off with Peter Brown. She is one of the women who is pursued by actors cast as members of an American unit of the same name during World War II. The movie stars James Garner and is directed by William Wellman. The western drama, The Day of the Outlaw (1959), features Robert Ryan as a rugged cattleman and Tina Louise as his mistress. Stevenson is among the supporting cast along with Nehemiah Persoff. Stevenson is in the English film Jack The Ripper (1960. The melodrama features Lee Patterson, Betty McDowall, and Eddie Byrne. The Studs Lonigan trilogy by James Farrell was brought to the screen in December 1960. Stevenson has a primary role as do Frank Gorshin and Christopher Knight.
In addition to Playhouse 90 Stevenson is in episodes of Cheyenne (TV series) (1957), Colt .45 (TV series) (1958), Sugarfoot (1957-1958), 3 episodes, 77 Sunset Strip (1958), The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1958), Lawman (1958), The Millionaire (1959), The Third Man (1959), and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960). Among the other motion pictures in which she appears are Island of Lost Women (1959), Jet Over The Atlantic (1959), The Big Night (1960), Seven Ways From Sundown (1960), The City of the Dead (1960), and The Sergeant Was a Lady (1961).
Venetia Stevenson is a former Miss Los Angeles Press Club as are Marilyn Monroe, Myrna Hansen, and Marla English.
Stevenson enjoys riding horses as an activity and also playing table tennis. She won $300 in prizes at a horse show and participated at the National Horse Show at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in November 1957.
