RIP Bek Nelson
IMDb Message Board
Frank Reighter
April 3, 2015
According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Bek Nelson was in 51 films and TV shows from 1951 to 1970, including many Westerns. Her lone Three Stooges appearance was in "Flying Saucer Daffy" (1958) with Joe Besser as the third Stooge. Archive footage from that short was used in "Three Stooges Fun-O-Rama (1959).
Bek was born Doris Stiner May 8, 1927 in Canton, Ohio, to Ralf and Mae Stiner. She became a bathing suit model and singer at the Copacabana night club in New York. After moving to Hollywood she met and married Don Gordon (Birth name Donald Walter Guadagno; born November 13, 1926 in Los Angeles, California). They adopted a daughter, Gabrielle (Now Mrs. Ken Adelman). Bek and Don divorced May 23, 1979. (Don has since married again and is still alive in Los Angeles, California).
Bek later entered Danamore, a retirement home at 460 Eureka Canyon Road, in Watsonville, California. In early March, 2015, in failing health, she was transferred to a rehabilitation facility, where she died peacefully on Saturday, March 28, 2015. According to her wishes, her body was donated to the University of California, San Francisco, where, after their research, her body will be cremated, and her cremains scattered into the Pacific Ocean off the San Francisco coast.
Special thanks to Three Stooges Fan Club members Sim Gershon and Rich Gallo, who alerted me to Bek's death, and to her adopted daughter, Gabrielle Gordon Adelman (Bek's only surviving relative), for information about her passing and the final disposition of her body.
NELSON, Bek (Doris Stiner)
Born: 5/8/1927, Canton, Ohio, U.S.A.
Died: 3/28/2015, Watsonville, California, U.S.A.
Bek Nelson’s westerns – actress:
Tales of the Texas Rangers (TV) – 1957 (Claire Tatum)
Cowboy – 1958 (Charlie’s girl)
Gunman’s Walk – 1958 (dancehall girl)
The Restless Gun (TV) – 1958 (Dixie Starr)
Lawman (TV) – 1958-1959 (Dru Lemp)
Bonanza (TV) – 1959 (Glory)
Buckskin (TV) – 1959 (Melissa Jankins)
Shotgun Slade (TV) – 1959 (Kathy)
The Deputy (TV) – 1960 (Claudia)
Wanted: Dead or Alive (TV) – 1960 (Hannah)
Bat Masterson (TV) – 1961 (Martha Yale)