Vera Miles

Early life

Miles was born Vera June Ralston in Boise City, Oklahoma to Thomas and Bernice (née Wyrick) Ralston. She had three elder siblings.

She grew up first in Pratt, Kansas, and later lived in Wichita, where she worked nights as a Western Union operator-typist and graduated from Wichita North High School in 1947. She was crowned Miss Kansas in 1948 and was the third runner-up in the Miss America contest. When she appeared as a contestant on the April 4, 1951, edition of the Groucho Marx quiz show You Bet Your Life described as "a beauty contest winner," Marx asked her about some of the titles she held. She replied, "I was first Miss Chamber of Commerce and then Miss Wichita and then Miss Kansas and Miss Texas Grapefruit and recently I've been chosen Miss New Maid Margarine and I had the honor to represent Kansas in the Miss America pageant."

Career

Miles moved to Los Angeles in 1950 and landed small roles in films and television, including a minor role as a chorus girl in Two Tickets to Broadway (1951), a musical starring Janet Leigh, with whom Miles co-starred nine years later in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho. She used her first husband's name, Miles, because there already was an active film actress who went by the name Vera Ralston. Miles eventually was put under contract at various studios. She once recalled, "I was dropped by the best studios in town."

In one of her first screen appearances, Miles played a Tournament of Roses queen in The Rose Bowl Story, a 1952 romantic comedy.

While under contract to Warner Bros., Miles was cast in Tarzan's Hidden Jungle (released in 1955) as Tarzan's love interest. After the filming she married her Tarzan co-star, Gordon Scott; they divorced in 1959. Director John Ford chose Miles to star as Jeffrey Hunter's love interest in The Searchers (1956) starring John Wayne. That same year, she co-starred in 23 Paces to Baker Street with Van Johnson. In 1957, she began a five-year personal contract with Alfred Hitchcock and was widely publicized as the director's potential successor to Grace Kelly.

Miles' new mentor directed her in the role of Ralph Meeker's emotionally troubled new bride in "Revenge", the pilot episode of his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Suitably impressed, Hitchcock directed her on the big screen alongside Henry Fonda, who played a musician falsely accused of a crime, in The Wrong Man (1956). Production delays and her pregnancy cost Miles the leading role opposite James Stewart in Vertigo (1958), the project Hitchcock designed as a showcase for his new star (the role that eventually went to Kim Novak).

Hitchcock cast Miles in what is arguably the role for which she is most remembered, that of Lila Crane in Psycho. She was cast in 1962 and 1965 episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. In 1962 she worked with John Ford again on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance starring John Wayne and James Stewart as two very different men competing for her hand in marriage (Stewart wins). Miles was featured in many popular television shows. On February 26, 1960, she starred in the episode "Mirror Image" of the classic CBS television series The Twilight Zone with Martin Milner. Miles guest-starred on the NBC Western series Riverboat, starring Darren McGavin and Burt Reynolds.

On October 4, 1960, Miles appeared in the episode "Three Rode West" of NBC's Laramie western series in the role of Annie Andrews, a young woman who is seeking a husband and ends up being terrorized by outlaw Frank Skinner, played by Myron Healey. In 1963, she co-starred in the first episode of ABC's The Fugitive titled "Fear in a Desert City". In 1964 she co-starred in an episode of The Outer Limits, "Forms of Things Unknown", originally broadcast on May 4, 1964.

In 1965, Miles portrayed Sister Gervaise in the episode "There's a Penguin in My Garden" of Mr. Novak, a TV series starring James Franciscus as an idealistic Los Angeles high school teacher. She also played a supporting role in several episodes of the CBS series My Three Sons. In 1965 she again co-starred in a new pilot for I Spy, a TV series starring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby in the episode "Affair in T'Sien Cha".

In 1966, Miles co-starred with Fred MacMurray in the Walt Disney film Follow Me, Boys!. In 1968, she was reunited with former co-star John Wayne for Hellfighters, after scenes in which she had played Wayne's character's wife in The Green Berets were cut by Warner Bros., which wanted more action in the film. Also that year she starred in Sergeant Ryker as the conflicted wife of an American soldier accused of treason during the Korean War, with Lee Marvin in the title role.

In 1972 she portrayed the married but lonely wife of a frontier sheriff in the western Molly and Lawless John, who falls in love with a condemned prisoner (played by Sam Elliott) and breaks him out of jail, pursued by a posse.

On television, in 1971 Miles appeared as the ex-girlfriend of private investigator Frank Cannon played by William Conrad. Her character asks for help when her husband is murdered in the pilot for the series Cannon. She would appear twice more on the series in different roles during its five-year run. She played a cosmetics queen who commits murder in the 1973 episode "Lovely But Lethal" of NBC's Columbo. She also had a part on CBS's Hawaii Five-O in the episode "Dear Enemy", portraying a woman whose husband was incarcerated after being framed for murder. In 1976, Miles appeared too in an episode of the mystery series Ellery Queen.

In 1983, two decades after Psycho, Miles reprised the role of Lila Crane for Psycho II, joining Anthony Perkins in the sequel. She guest-starred in three (1985, 1990 and 1991) episodes of Murder, She Wrote. Throughout the 1980s, until her retirement in 1995, Miles continued to work in both television and film.

Personal life

Miles has been married four times. Her first husband was Bob Miles. They were married from 1948–1954, and had two daughters, Debra and Kelley. Her second husband was Gordon Scott. They were married from 1956–1960 and had one son, Michael. Her third husband was actor Keith Larsen (né Keith Larsen Burt). They were married from 1960–1971 and had one son, Erik. By sheer coincidence all three of her ex-husbands died within a short time span of each other. Her third husband, Keith Larsen died on December 13, 2006; first husband/stuntman and small part actor Bob Miles died on April 12, 2007; and bodybuilder second husband actor Gordon Scott, who played Tarzan in films, died on April 30, 2007. She married her fourth husband, Director/Assistant Director Robert Jones, in 1973.

She lives in California and does not grant interviews or make public appearances. One of her grandsons, actor Jordan Essoe, met with actress Jessica Biel in 2012 in preparation for Biel's portrayal of Miles in the film Hitchcock.