Gloria Stuart, a 1930s Hollywood leading lady whose first significant role in nearly 60 years — as the  centenarian survivor of the Titanic in James Cameron's 1997 Oscar-winning film about the ill-fated ocean liner — earned her an Academy Award nomination, has died. She was 100.

Stuart, a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild who later became an accomplished painter, died Sunday night at her West Los Angeles home, her family said.

Stuart had been diagnosed with lung cancer five years ago.

The actress, who was born July 4, 1910, was honored with an “Academy Centennial Celebration With Gloria Stuart” at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills in July.

As a glamorous blond actress under contract to Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox in the 1930s, Stuart appeared opposite Claude Rains in James Whale's “The Invisible Man” and with Warner Baxter in John Ford's “The Prisoner of Shark Island.”

She also appeared with Eddie Cantor in “Roman Scandals,” with Dick Powell in Busby Berkeley's “Gold Diggers of 1935” and with James Cagney in “Here Comes the Navy.” And she played romantic leads in two Shirley Temple movies, “Poor Little Rich Girl” and “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.”

But mostly she played what Stuart later dismissed as “stupid parts with nothing to do” — “girl reporter, girl detective, girl nurse” — and “it became increasingly evident to me I wasn't going to get to be a big star like Katharine Hepburn and Loretta Young.”

After making 42 feature films between 1932 and 1939, Stuart's latest studio contract, with 20th Century Fox, was not renewed. She appeared in only four films in the 1940s and retired from the screen in 1946.

By 1974, “the blond lovely of the talkies” had become an entry in one of Richard Lamparski's “Whatever Became of ... ?" books.

Writer-director Cameron's $200-million “Titanic” changed that.

As Rose Calvert, Stuart played the 100-year-old Titanic survivor who showed up after modern-day treasure hunters searching through the wreckage of the sunken ship found a charcoal drawing of her wearing a priceless blue diamond necklace.

Stuart's performance framed the 1997 romantic-drama that starred Leonardo DiCaprio as lower-class artist Jack Dawson and Kate Winslet as the upper-class young Rose.

In “Gloria Stuart: I Just Kept Hoping,” her 1999 autobiography written with her daughter Sylvia Thompson, Stuart said that after reading the script, “I knew the role I had wanted and waited for all these many years had arrived! I could taste the role of Old Rose!”

At 87, Stuart became the oldest actress ever nominated for an Academy Award.

In 2000, several hundred fans gathered on Hollywood Boulevard next to the Egyptian Theatre for the unveiling of Stuart's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

A complete obituary will follow at www.latimes.com/obits.

-- Dennis McLellan

Photos, from top: Gloria Stuart at her home in July. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times. Stuart in the 1934 film "I Like It That Way." Credit: Cinecon

 

John Delloro, national president of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, executive director of the Dolores Huerta Labor Institute and a UCLA instructor, has died. He was 38.

Delloro died June 5 of a heart attack, said his wife, Susan A. Suh.

Delloro was elected last year as national president of the Asian Pacific labor group. It is the only national organization for Asian Pacific American union members, said Kent Wong, director of UCLA’s Center for Labor Research and Education and the group’s founding president.

The Dolores Huerta institute, named after the United Farm Workers co-founder, works to expand labor studies in the Los Angeles Community College District. Delloro had been executive director since 2006.

Winfred John Delloro was born Aug. 29, 1971, in Port Reading, N.J. His family moved to California in 1984, and he graduated from Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills in 1989. Delloro graduated from College of the Canyons in 1991. He received a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a specialization in Asian American studies in 1994 and a master’s in Asian American studies in 1996, both from UCLA.

"John was a brilliant student while at UCLA. He had the option of pursuing many career paths," Wong said. "But he was dedicated to improving the lives of working people."

Delloro, who taught Asian American studies at UCLA, also taught at Los Angeles Trade Technical College’s Labor Center.

In addition to his wife, Delloro is survived by his children, Mina and Malcolm; his parents, Celinia and Winfred Delloro, and a brother, Alvin.

Services have been held, but there will be a public memorial from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at the East Los Angeles College auditorium, Wong said. The college is at 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez in Monterey Park.

-- Keith Thursby

 

   

Contrary to the 1979 movie "Norma Rae" that made her union fight famous, Crystal Lee Sutton never went skinny dipping with her union mentor, played in the film by actor Ron Leibman. But when she was fired from her job at the J.P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., she did hoist herself on top of a table on the factory floor and hold up a handmade sign that said "UNION" for all her fellow workers to see. And she was hauled off the floor kicking and screaming, just as Sally Field was in the Martin Ritt-directed movie.

The only concession the factory bosses may have made to their unruly employee came after they told Sutton to go home and Sutton told them they'd have to make her go. As quoted in Victoria Byerly's 1986 book "Hard Times Cotton Mill Girls," the fiery activist told the men in the front office: "If you do call the cops, you're going to have to call the chief of police because my husband is a jealous man and he won't let me ride home with just anybody." The chief happened to be her first cousin's husband, but he did her no favors. He took her to jail. 

Watch a clip from "Norma Rae" after the jump...