Gloria Stuart, 100; was Oscar nominee for 'Titanic'

LOS ANGELES - Gloria Stuart, 100, 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.

Ms. Stuart died of respiratory failure Sunday night at her Los Angeles home, her daughter, Sylvia Thompson, said Monday. The actress had been diagnosed with lung cancer five years ago and had beaten breast cancer about 20 years ago, Thompson said.

"She did not believe in illness. She paid no attention to it, and it served her well," Thompson said. "She had a great life. I'm not sad. I'm happy for her."

In her youth, Ms. Stuart was a blond beauty who starred in B pictures as well as some higher-profile ones such as The Invisible Man, Busby Berkeley's Gold Diggers of 1935, and two Shirley Temple movies, Poor Little Rich Girl and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. By the mid-1940s she had retired.

She resumed acting in the 1970s, doing occasional television and film work, including Peter O'Toole's 1982 comedy My Favorite Year. But Ms. Stuart's later career would have remained largely a footnote if James Cameron had not chosen her for his 1997 epic about the doomed luxury liner that struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in 1912.

Ms. Stuart co-starred as Rose Calvert, the 101-year-old survivor played by Kate Winslet as a young woman. Both earned Oscar nominations, Winslet as best actress and Ms. Stuart as supporting actress.

Cameron wanted an actress who was "still viable, not alcoholic, rheumatic, or falling down," Ms. Stuart once said. Then in her mid-80s, she endured hours in the makeup chair so she could look 15 years older, and she traveled to the Atlantic location, where the wreck of the real Titanic was photographed.

It was the first time in Oscar history that two performers were nominated for playing the same character in the same film, and it made the 87-year-old Ms. Stuart the oldest acting nominee in history.

Ms. Stuart was thought by many to be the sentimental favorite for the supporting-actress prize, but the award went to Kim Basinger for L.A. Confidential.

Shortly after her 100th birthday on July 4, Ms. Stuart was honored with a tribute at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

"She talked with a thousand or so people as if they were in her living room," Ms. Stuart's daughter said. "She was just the ultimate hostess."

Ms. Stuart was born in 1910 in Santa Monica, Calif., and began acting while in college. She is survived by her daughter, four grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren.