PASSINGS: Steven Reuther, Yvonne Stevens, Macklin Fleming

Steven Reuther, producer’s credits included ‘Pretty Woman’

Steven Reuther, 58, a producer and executive whose credits include “Pretty Woman,” “Dirty Dancing” and “The Ugly Truth,” died Saturdayof cancer at his home in Santa Monica, his family said.

He was an executive producer on such films as “Dirty Dancing” (1987) and “Face/Off” (1997). His producing credits included “Pretty Woman” (1990), “The Client” (1994), ‘“The Rainmaker” (1997), “Pay It Forward” i (2000) and “The Ugly Truth” (2009).

Reuther started in the mailroom at the William Morris talent agency in the late 1970s before becoming an agent and then working in film development. In the 1990s, Reuther teamed with Michael Douglas as president and chief executive of Douglas/Reuther Productions.

Yvonne Stevens, silent-film actress, 1st wife of director

Yvonne Stevens, 104, a silent-film actress and the first wife of Academy Award-winning director George Stevens, died of heart failure May 27 at her home in Hollywood, publicist Michelle Bega said.

She was born July 31, 1905, in Chicago, the daughter of vaudeville performer Alice Howell, and moved to Los Angeles with her mother in 1915. As Yvonne Howell, the actress appeared in Mack Sennett films as one of his “bathing beauties” and had parts in the 1927 films “Fashions for Women” and “Somewhere in Sonora.”

FOR THE RECORD:
Yvonne Stevens obituary: A brief obituary in the June 8 LATExtra section of Yvonne Stevens, silent-film actress and first wife of Academy Award-winning director George Stevens, misstated the year the couple divorced. It was 1947, not 1937. —

She met George Stevens in 1928, when he was a cameraman for Hal Roach’s Laurel and Hardy films, and they married in 1930. She retired from acting and they had a son, George Jr., who became the founding director of the American Film Institute.

The couple divorced in 1937, and George Stevens went on to direct such films as “Gunga Din,” “A Place in the Sun,” “Giant” and “Shane.” He died in 1975.

Yvonne Stevens worked as a nurse’s aide at military hospitals in Southern California during World War II and volunteered as a tutor, her family said.

Macklin Fleming, former longtime appellate judge

Macklin Fleming, 98, a former longtime California appellate judge, died May 27 at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in West Los Angeles after a short illness, said his wife, Polly.

Fleming was a Superior Court judge in 1964 when he was appointed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal by Gov. Edmund G. Brown. Fleming remained on the bench until he retired from the appellate court in 1981.

He ruled with the 2-1 majority in a 1970 decision that said unmarried girls under 21 and living with their parents could not have an abortion without parental consent. In 1980, Fleming was part of a unanimous decision upholding the state’s anti-busing amendment, Proposition 1. And in 1996, he canceled a $2.3-million jury award to a former LAPD officer who said she suffered sex discrimination and harassment trying to join the department’s SWAT unit. He said the award was excessive.

He was born Ingram Macklin Stainback Jr. in Chicago on Sept. 6, 1911, to Ingram M. Stainback and Hazel Caldwell. His parents divorced when he was young and he took the last name of his stepfather, William Fleming. His father served as governor of the territory of Hawaii from 1942 to 1951.

He graduated with a bachelor of law degree from Yale in 1937 and practiced law In New York and then California. During World War II, Fleming was a captain in the Army.

He was a Superior Court judge from 1959 to 1964. Fleming also was an author; his books included “The Price of Perfect Justice” in 1974 and “Lawyers, Money and Success” in 1997.

-- Times staff and wire reports

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