LOS ANGELES — Gloria Stuart, the 1930s Hollywood leading lady who years later became the oldest Academy Award acting nominee for her role as the spunky survivor in "Titanic," has died. She remembers being taught that it's not proper to visit someone without a present. Her mother, Alice Vaughan Deidrick Stewart, was born in Angels Camp, California. 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. On June 19, 2010, Stuart was honored by the Screen Actors Guild for her years of service. It's about looking for treasures, like fame, in all the wrong places. She asked a friend in the business about him and was shocked to discover she was being drafted by the big leagues. A half-sister, Patsy — Patricia Marie Finch — was born in 1924. Update: Gloria Stewart died September 26, 2010 at age 100 of lung cancer . But Ms. Stuart, who was not quite 2 when the Titanic sank off the coast of Newfoundland on April 14 and 15, 1912, claims not to miss those days. The only thing she doesn't do, she says almost apologetically, is bind them. Gloria Stuart was born on a dining room table on 4th Street in Santa Monica, California on July 4, 1910. When James Cameron's company contacted her, she knew neither the director nor his company. The last big role for Ms. Stuart, 87, who plays old Rose to Kate Winslet's youthful incarnation, came in James Whale's 1932 The Old Dark Horse, in … Stuart was an activist and became a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, but her career with Universal was disappointing. In 1934, Stuart and Newell divorced amicably and she married screenwriter Arthur Sheekman, one of the writers on Roman Scandals. She was fascinated by his antique hand press and asked him to teach her how to run it. A second brother, Thomas, died in infancy. Ms. Stuart laughs easily and often. On July 22, 2010, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored her career with a program featuring film clips and a conversation between Stuart and film historian Leonard Maltin. Stuart was nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She says it's because her mother's family was split with relatives from the South and North, and she favors the Southern influence. When they reached France, they tried to volunteer for the French Resistance, but were turned down, so they caught the last ship sailing to New York. Once, one of them, upon seeing her, offered her the flower, stammered and called her Great Great Great Gloria instead of Great Grandmother Gloria. Like any in-demand star of the era, Stuart’s resume is loaded with a lot of disposable filler cranked out quickly and on the cheap. Gloria Stuart, the 1930s Hollywood leading lady who years later became the oldest Academy Award acting nominee for her role as the spunky survivor in "Titanic," has died. Suzy Amis credited Stuart for bringing her together on the set with her eventual husband, director James Cameron. At Berkeley, she majored in drama and philosophy but dropped out in her junior year to marry Blair Gordon Newell, a San Francisco sculptor working under Ralph Stackpole on the facade of the San Francisco Stock Exchange building. She was the star of her senior class play at Santa Monica High School in 1927. He tantalizes Rose out of decades of anonymity with a picture of her wearing that diamond. Time condenses like the genie snaking back into Aladdin's lamp, and suddenly, on the other side of the mirror, we see the young girl who last saw herself there. Her paintings and lithographs were exhibited across the United States. She became a favorite of director James Whale, appearing in his The Old Dark House (1932), The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) and The Invisible Man (1933). They were visiting their daughter at the Sorbonne in Paris in the 1950s, Ms. Stuart recalls, and she was "stunned" at seeing masterpieces in the original she had previously only known as reproductions. 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. I have some answers. The last big role for Ms. Stuart, 87, who plays old Rose to Kate Winslet's youthful incarnation, came in James Whale's 1932 The Old Dark Horse, in which the young, elegant blonde was the leading lady. Sheekman wrote 17 screenplays during the next 16 years. By signing up you agree to our privacy policy, Stand with us in our mission to discover and uncover the story of North Texas. 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