Robert Stevens was the son of Robert E. Stevens (1837–1918) and Emily "Emma" Maddern (1845–1903). His father was a theatrical manager, before the
American Civil War, had joined the
United States Navy, where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant. According to the
New York Times, Robert E. Stevens "took out the first traveling theatrical company" from New York City. His mother, Emma, was an actress, as was his sister,
Emily Stevens. He is the cousin of
Mrs. Fiske, one of the greatest American actresses of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Mrs. Fisk herself, while appearing in Rochester in the late 1920s in an
Ibsen play, visited the Rochester Community Players Playhouse, in the company of Stevens, and again was described as his cousin in a newspaper report of the visit. According to a
New York Times interview with his sister, Emily Stevens, their mother, Emma Maddern, was a sister of Mrs. Fiske's mother, Elizabeth Maddern, and also a sister of Mary Maddern, who played with Mrs. Fiske for many years. Stevens performed as an actor in a number of Mrs. Fiske's productions. but he left to attend the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He again married, to Constance B. Stevens, in June 1951. ==Community theater director==