Mark Stevens (actor)

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Mark Stevens was a movie actor of the 1940s and 1950s.

He was born Richard Stevens on December 13, 1916 in Cleveland, Ohio.

After studying to become a painter, Ohioan Mark Stevens became active in theater work. He then launched a radio career as an announcer in Akron, Ohio.

Moving to Hollywood, he became a Warner Brothers contract actor at $100 a week in 1943. They changed his looks and his stage name. They darkened and straightened his curly ginger-colored hair and covered his freckles. At first he was billed as Stephen Richards, but it was later changed again to Mark Stevens at the suggestion of Darryl Zanuck when he moved to 20th Century Fox.

Stevens emerged as a film noir leading man in such films as Within These Walls (1945) and The Dark Corner (1946), the latter pairing him up with Lucille Ball. He received one of what many critics consider his best role, as an FBI man going undercover to arrest a gangster played by Richard Widmark in The Street with No Name (1948). He appeared as Olivia DeHavilland's loyal husband in The Snake Pit. Stevens also appeared in musicals including I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now? (1947) and Oh, You Beautiful Doll (1949).

In the 1950s Stevens was also a television star, producer and writer. He worked in semi-retirement in the 1960s in Europe. In the 80's he appeared in television shows Magnum, P.I. and Murder, She Wrote.

He died in Majores, Spain on September 15, 1994, aged 77.

Stevens has a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, located at 6637 Hollywood Blvd.