There are a lot of great blog interviews with Stella out there. She was very friendly and accessible to her fans & film fans during the golden age of blogs (circa 2000 to 2010—when lots of independent blogs flourished).

In her early days / late 1950s she had tons of publicity as “the starlet whose son was kidnapped by her husband.” She was the girl from the wrong side of the tracks in a small town in Arkansas and she got knocked up by a local rich guy. This publicity dominated her early days and there are lots of photos out there of teary Stella holding photos of her toddler.

If this doesn’t sound like Mildred Pierce and Andrew doesn’t sound like Veda…

“I was 16 when he was born. And when I went out to Hollywood, I missed him so much. I saw a film in which Frank Sinatra sang "High Hopes" — that inspired me to go back and get my baby from Memphis and bring him to California. But my ex-husband came and stole him from me — charged me with Contempt of Court, and took him back to Memphis, lied to him and said, "Your mother doesn't want you anymore — she's got too many boyfriends in California. We'll give you a motorcycle, a pig, a dog, a bunny, a cat, whatever. We love you, and your mother doesn't."

Q: How old was your son?

He was three. And so, to this day, Andrew is scarred from that. I went back, 13 months later, having paid $25,000 to a lawyer here, and $25,000 to a lawyer in Tennessee, who met me in Arkansas. Because if I would go into Shelby County I would have been thrown in jail for Contempt of Court. Finally when I went to court, the bailiff thought it was a joke to put the Playboy spread under the glass on the judge's desk. I've had a lot of people do mean things to me. The judge allowed me to have my son certain times of the year, and Andrew always went back to Memphis for vacations. When he was 14, he came back from Memphis and said, "I hate you. I hate California. I hate the maid. I hate your friends. I hate my school. I hate everything." I said, "Okay. Tomorrow you get on a plane and you go back to Memphis." I sent him away, because I couldn't deal with it anymore — all the hatred I had all of his life because of those people. I walked around the house like a ghost for three years, crying. I couldn't go into his room. But I finally got over it, you know? You get over anything. I just kept on doing what I was doing.

Q: How did you guys hook up again?

I'm not sure we're "hooked up" now. We speak. We're civil to each other, and we've worked together. We have made peace because of my grandchildren.”