Arms full of empty: On borrowed time with Inger Stevens
“When I lie down at the end of the road, I’ll want to have left something behind, even if it is just having helped one other person.” It was a piece of cake for prolific actress Inger Stevens to convincingly convey undercurrents of desolation and fragility. Stretched over 16 tragically fleeting years, Stevens’ résumé boasts roles in 39 television series, 13 theatrical films, and 3 made-for-TV movies.
Whether the near-to-the-breaking-point heroine being hounded by “The Hitchhiker” in The Twilight Zone, a chronically ill pioneer falling for big lug Hoss Cartwright in Bonanza, a post-nuclear destruction survivor stumbling upon Harry Belafonte in The World, the Flesh and the Devil, Manhattan detective Richard Widmark’s social-climbing spouse in Madigan, an empathetic landlady for running on empty outlaw gang leader Henry Fonda in Firecreek, or an unsuspecting wife incapable of seducing dipstick husband Walter Matthau in the comical A Guide for the Married Man, Stevens was magnetic. Furthermore, the breathtaking blonde was easily one of Clint Eastwood’s best ever celluloid love interests in Hang ’Em High as a revenge-seeking widow nursing his untold bullet wounds. Stevens was predisposed to engage in brief, ultimately unfulfilling flings with her leading gents, including the Man with No Name.
