Godspeed Olive Sturgess

Former actress Olive Sturgess died on February 19 2025 in Ocean Falls, British Columbia at the age of 91. She had lost the home she had owned for 60 years in the Pacific Palisades fire, but died of natural causes. She played Bob's nephew Chuck MacDonald's girlfriend Carol on The Bob Cummings Show and guest starred on many television Westerns. Among her movies roles was .  the daughter of Vincent Price's character in The Raven (1963).

Olive Sturgess was born on October 8 1933 in Ocean Falls, British Columbia. Her father, Leonard Sturgess, hosted his own radio show. As a youngster she took both piano and ballet lessons  She also It was seeing Mary Martin played Peter Pan on stage that convinced her to take up acting. Her family moved to California in 1954.

Olive Sturgess attended Whittier College, and also acted at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. It was at this time that she was discovered by Hank Garson, who wrote radio shows at CBS. She was signed to a contract with Universal-International. At Universal-International not only was she given vice and dancing lessons, but she was also taught fencing, firing guns, and horseback riding Miss Sturgess grew to love horseback riding, and became proficient enough in it to participate in rodeos.

Olive Sturgess made her film debut in the theatrical short "Leave It to Harry" in 1954. She made her television debut in 1955 in an episode of Studio 57. In the Fifties she played the recurring role of  Carol, Chuck's girlfriend, on The Bob Cummings Show. Later in the decade and in the early Sixties, she played twins May and June McBean on the Western TV show The Tall Man. She guest starred on the shows Shower of Stars, The Millionaire, The People's Choice, Front Row Center, The Red Skelton Show, Four Star Jubilee, Telephone Time, Casablanca, Producer's Showcase, Lux Video Theatre, Crusader, Matinee Theatre, West Point. Wire Service, Strange Stories, The Alcoa Hour, Goodyear Television Playhouse, Tales of Wells Fargo, Perry Mason, Cheyenne, Panic!, Sugarfoot, Studio One, The Further Adventures of Ellery Queen, U..S. Marshal, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, The Texan, General Electric Theatre, Rawhide, Have Gun--Will Travel, Lawman, Buckskin, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, Laramie, The Donna Reed Show, Philip Marlowe, Johnny Midnight, The Man and the Challenge, Wagon Train, Mr. Garland, Hawaiian Eye, and The Rebel. She appeared in the films Lady Godiva of Coventry (1955) and The Kettles in the Ozarks (1956).

In the Sixties Olive Sturgess continued to appear on the TV show The Tall Man. She appeared in two episodes of the horror/suspense anthology Thriller. This led her being cast as Estelle Craven in The Raven (1963). She guest starred on the TV shows The Rebel, The Jack Benny Program, Bronco, Bringing Up Buddy, Westinghouse Preview Theatre, Whispering Smith, Maverick, Outlaws, Checkmate, The Wide Country, Make Room for Daddy, Destry, Petticoat Junction, The Virginian, Dr. Kildare, Bonanza, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., and Ironside. She appeared in the movies Requiem for a Gunfighter.

Olive Sturgess's last on-screen appearance was in two episodes of The Rookies, playing a different character in each one.

If Olive Sturgess was prolific in American television in the Fifties and Sixties, it wasn't simply because she was pretty and fresh-faced. It wasn't even because she knew how to ride a horse and shoot a gun. It was because she could play a wide variety of parts convincingly. Carol on The Bob Cumming Show was very much a Mid-Century ingenue, sweet and wholesome, but she also played hillbillies May and June on The Tall Man. In the Thriller episode "The Closed Cabinet" she played a young American woman investigating a mysterious cabinet that may responsible for a curse on a British family. In the Maverick episode "The Golden Fleecing' she played a young Quaker woman. Of course, Miss Sturgess may be best known as Estelle in The Raven, the headstrong daughter of wizard Dr. Erasmus Craven. Olive Sturgess could play a number of roles and she played all of them well.