Pilar Seurat

Pilar Seurat (born Rita Hernandez; July 25, 1938 – June 2, 2001) was a Filipino American film and television actress in the 1960s.

Born in Manila, Seurat began her Hollywood career as a dancer in Ken Murray's "Blackouts", the popular postwar variety show at the El Capitan Theatre. Though she primarily played Asian characters, Seurat was adept at playing various nationalities; her breakthrough role was as Louisa Escalante, the blind murder victim's sister in John Frankenheimer's The Young Savages (1961).

She was frequently cast on 1960s television shows whose production staff sought performers for Asian, Hispanic, or Native American roles, including in Adventures in Paradise, The Fugitive, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Seaway, Hawaiian Eye, The Virginian, Maverick, Bonanza, Stoney Burke, Star Trek, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Wild Wild West, Hawaii Five-O, The F.B.I., I Spy, The Lieutenant, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Rawhide, Ben Casey, and Mannix.

In 1959, Seurat married producer Don Devlin. Their son, Dean Devlin, would later become a prominent producer and screenwriter. The couple divorced in 1963. In 1970, she married writer Don Cerveris and retired from acting, adopting the name Pilar Cerveris. This marriage ended in 1981.

Seurat’s father, Major Al Hernandez, was a Filipino-American who fought against Japanese occupiers in the Philippine jungle during World War II. He later authored a book titled “Bahala na,” recounting his wartime experiences. Pilar had a sister, Angela Hernandez, who lived in the Philippines, and a younger half-sister, Alana Lambros, a television producer in Los Angeles.

Seurat died of lung cancer on June 2, 2001, at the age of 62, in Los Angeles. She is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery. The 2002 comedy-horror film Eight Legged Freaks, produced by her son, was dedicated to her memory.

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