Gloria Stewart's Sparkle Endured

Gloria Stuart died this week. She was 100 years old. Stuart won an Academy Award nomination for playing 101-year-old Rose Calvert, a survivor in the movie "Titanic."

I was lucky enough to meet Miss Stuart after she became a movie star again -- because 66 years before Titanic, Stuart had been and ingénue and heroine of "B" movies in the 1930's. She quit Hollywood in 1942, because, she told me, she got tired of playing girl reporters, girl detectives and Shirley Temple's sister.

She became an accomplished artist with pieces in the Getty Museum and was asked to audition for the part that would make her famous. She said it was easy. She knew she was good. And it was a role she could taste. Stuart had an ageless energy -- a real sparkle in her eye. And when I asked what it was like to be rediscovered at 87, she said, "Well it's about time -- much later might not work."

Just a minute. I'm Harry Smith, CBS News.