Annie Lucille Stevens

Anne Stevens Hamilton, mother of actor George Hamilton, died in Palm Beach, Fla., on May 21. She was 93.

Mrs. Hamilton, a longtime resident of Palm Beach, was born Aug. 27, 1910, in Hopkinsville, Ky. She was the daughter of Carlos Crawford Stevens, a physician, and Mildred Hubbard Stevens.

Her mother, a Christian Scientist, was descended from one of the First Families of Virginia. The Hubbards had married into the Randolph, Pendleton, Perkins and Gaines families. She grew up in Blytheville, Ark., where she attended a Christian Science school. From there, she attended Mrs. T. Darrington Semple ' s School for Girls in New York.

" They taught me how to make tea, " she once said of her time at the finishing school. " But they should ' ve taught me how to make a cocktail. That would ' ve served me better. "

She also attended Principia in St. Louis.

The slender, raven-haired beauty eschewed the debutante season, the traditional introduction to society.

" I didn ' t need to debut, " she said in a later interview. " I already knew everybody. "

Mrs. Hamilton, once described by a friend as " a cross between Auntie Mame and Scarlett O ' Hara, " took few things seriously, least of all herself. Once jokingly introduced as " Lady Hamilton, " a New Yorker asked what her full title might be. " Why, the Countess d ' Arkansas, " she answered.

She was married four times. Her first marriage, at 18, was to William Potter, a Princeton alumnus who worked on Wall Street. Her second marriage, to Dartmouth alumnus and society bandleader George " Spike " Hamilton, lasted seven years. Her third husband was Carlton Hunt, a Bostonian who went to Harvard, and her fourth husband was Jesse Spalding of Palm Beach, sportsman and Yale graduate.

" I married the Ivy League, " she often said.

All four marriages ended in divorce.

Between marriages, she spent some time in Hollywood, where her suitors included actors Clark Gable and Ronald Reagan.

Always self-deprecating, Mrs. Hamilton professed to have few skills and numbered her talents as " a love of life, fashion, entertaining, and marriage. "

Although she refused alimony from all four husbands, she engaged in paid employment only twice, working as a clerk at the Gabor family ' s New York dress shop in the 1930s, and, in her later years, as a society interviewer for a local television station.

She did charity work while married to Hunt. When she learned that letters to Santa ended up in Boston ' s dead letter office, she enlisted the help of her Beacon Hill neighbors and together they answered needy children ' s requests for toys. The local newspaper recognized her efforts by nicknaming her " Mrs. Santa Claus " incurring the disapproval of her husband, whose Yankee sensibilities were shocked by publicity of any kind.

After moving to Palm Beach, she said she tried to live up to the young society matron image. " PTA wasn ' t my thing, " she once said. " I went to a meeting once, but I was totally overdressed. "

Nor was the garden club on her agenda, as she noted, " I couldn ' t raise a flower with a pair of tweezers. "

Instead, she became known for her wit, glamour and personal charm.

" Everywhere my mother goes, it ' s a party, " George Hamilton once told late-night host Jay Leno. " She gets into a fender-bender, and next thing you know there ' s a pinata and margaritas. "

Mrs. Hamilton is survived by her sons George Hamilton of Los Angeles and David Hamilton of Palm Beach; and her grandchildren Anne Marie Hamilton of Redondo Beach, Douglas M. Hamilton of Rutherford, N.J., Ashley Hamilton of

London, and George Thomas Hamilton of Los Angeles.

Her eldest son, William Potter, died in 1985.

Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune on 6/13/2004.