Ike Jones — a pioneering African American producer and the first Black graduate of UCLA’s film school — secretly married actress Inger Stevens on November 18, 1961, in Tijuana, Mexico. At Jones' insistence the union was kept hidden for nearly a decade because, as Jones later testified and Stevens' brother Carl O. Stensland corroborated in court, Stevens feared the marriage would damage her career. The secrecy turned explosive after Stevens was found dead of a barbiturate overdose in April 1970; her death was ruled a suicide and she left no will. Only then did Jones make the marriage public by filing to be appointed administrator of her estate. The ensuing courtroom drama — in which Jones could not produce a valid marriage license but nonetheless prevailed when Superior Court Commissioner A. Edward Nichols appointed him administrator in August 1970 — became tabloid fodder and a thorny legal and moral controversy about celebrity privacy, mental health, and the rights of surviving spouses.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s
The Secret Tijuana Wedding and the Bitter Estate Fight After Inger Stevens' 1970 Death
Ike Jones & Inger Stevens / 1970s
Ike Jones — a pioneering African American producer and the first Black graduate of UCLA’s film school — secretly married actress Inger Stevens on November 18, 1961, in Tijuana, Mexico. At Jones' insistence the union was kept hidden for nearly a decade because, as Jones later testified and Stevens' brother Carl O. Stensland corroborated in court, Stevens feared the marriage would damage her career. The secrecy turned explosive after Stevens was found dead of a barbiturate overdose in April 1970; her death was ruled a suicide and she left no will. Only then did Jones make the marriage public by filing to be appointed administrator of her estate. The ensuing courtroom drama — in which Jones could not produce a valid marriage license but nonetheless prevailed when Superior Court Commissioner A. Edward Nichols appointed him administrator in August 1970 — became tabloid fodder and a thorny legal and moral controversy about celebrity privacy, mental health, and the rights of surviving spouses.
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