In her youth, Stuart, pictured circa 1934, was a blond beauty who starred in B pictures as well as some higher-profile ones such as “The Invisible Man” and two Shirley Temple movies, “Poor Little Rich Girl” and “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.” But by the mid-1940s she had retired.

She resumed acting in the 1970s, doing occasional television and film work.

But Stuart’s later career would have remained largely a footnote if James Cameron had not chosen her for his 1997 epic about the doomed luxury liner that struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in 1912. Stuart co-starred as Rose Calvert, the 101-year-old survivor, played by Kate Winslet as a young woman.