Beverly Garland

[Findcandor]

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Did you know that a "garland" is a decorative wreath of pretty things, like flowers (as seen in second image above)? Now the actress being celebrated here inadvertently wound up with that name, since she got married to an actor known as Richard Garland in 1951 (the union lasted two years; she also took the last name of her first husband, a 20-year-old fisherman, which is why her first few screen endeavors have been credited to "Beverly Campbell"), but isn't this "garland" name appropriate? I suppose now is my time to confess I have always had a "thing" for this decoration known as Beverly Garland.


Beverly got it right with her
third attempt at wedded bliss,
sticking with land developer
Fillmore Crank for nearly four
decades, until his death in
1999. In the early 1970s, he
built 2 hotels bearing the
name of his trophy wife, which
the couple managed for the
most part. After the man died
of cancer, she continued to
operate the Beverly Garland
Holiday Inn, with the help of
three of her four kids.

This thread begun by Wendigo in 2012 has only grown to a mere two pages at this point, but why don't you and I further explore this delightful woman, who always packed a punch on the screen? She was reported to have said, "Maybe I do come on strong, and people sense in me a strength and a positiveness . . . It's really the way I look and act, not the way I am . . . Once you cut through the protective coating, I'm strictly molasses." (Yeah, but molasses can be very sweet.)

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In what looks like circa the 1950s, the actress attended the New York Auto Show, while
wearing about $2,500,000 worth of jewels. Next, clowning around at a 1956 Halloween
party in Los Angeles (photo by Earl Leaf).

The last post on the thread (now at the bottom of the last page, or Page 2) was from Member "Gumgy55" (who hooked up with VEF all the way back in 2007, and is still signing in, bless 'im); only six of his twelve posts (to date) have survived, so he has not treated us to his thoughts very often. Yet when he does (if the preceding post serves as example), it's to lay on a valuable fact that few are aware of.



First one with exposed "underboob" may represent the only genuinely nude occasion for this actress.

This veteran VEF'er told us that Beverly was into "risque shorts" when young, and pointed to a couple of examples. (Her IMDb biographer was similarly aware: "Garland... appeared scantily-clad in a few risqué shorts before making her feature film debut.") Gumgy55 actually located examples, and invited "someone" to look into the two shorts he linked to, and before we get into Ms. Garland in more detail, I guess I'm going to have to be that "someone."







After all, this is a rare opportunity to explore Beverly when "scantily clad," and we can't miss doing so, hmmmm? Especially since these (Fanny with the Cheeks of Tan from above, and The Hitchhiker, seen below) just may have been her "nudiest" views on record.


Let's see now... how did Claudette Colbert get the car to stop in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT?



..........................
.........................After our heroine removed one item of clothing too many, this short from
........................."Seaside Studios" ended with a "NEWS FLASH": "State highway traffic jam
.........................— Thousands of cars in mass collision! Governor to declare martial law
.........................— Aid rushed!" (Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk..!)

No doubt the young hopeful was trying to gain experience by appearing in these naughty little pictures, since she was encouraged by her mother to become an actress, took drama lessons, appeared in plays and finally got an agent, who led her to get that "feature film debut."


Beverly has stated that when she was asked at a party as to whether D.O.A. would win the best picture award, her date, the studio's
public relations man, ratted out her honest answer to the big brass, and as a result, she was blackballed from movies for the next few
years. One may see from her filmography that her next film of consequence was PROBLEM GIRLS (1953), about spoiled rich girls
sent to a reform school. Yet her next jobs came in quick succession, as with the same year's THE NEANDERTHAL MAN, where she
was a waitress. In the Femme Fatales article put up by Member "Gemini37," Bev said she recalled nothing about her first genre film.

We're talking about D.O.A.(1949), a noteworthy noir with Edmond O'Brien (who has been poisoned for no reason, and sets out to find the killer before kicking the bucket; pictured above, strong-arming our gal). I had watched this fine film years ago, but did not know the actress playing the role of a secretary involved in said murder scheme was our lady. Watching the scene now in order to grab these frames, I'm very impressed with the way Beverly confidently held her own with O'Brien, as if she had been an old hand at the game. (Bette Davis had seen Beverly in a play during this early period, and when their paths crossed, complimented her with, "You were very good.")


Beverly Garland appeared in many
stage productions during the early
phase of her career, allowing her to
gain notice. One was the 1951 play
DARK OF THE MOON; seen here with
actor Don Garrett.

There were two unidentified images from the thread that piqued my curiosity (since our lady's skin was showing more than usual; the second hinted at all-out nudity, if not for the damned towel), so I made it my business to see where they were from:

Originally Posted by Sam Spade

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.................................................. ..............Second image from SanteeFats

Sam Spade pointed to the first time the "bathing suit" image seen above appeared in the 2016 post that preceded his, courtesy of Member "Cuzzyman927." The thing I don't understand is that Cuzzy used an image server that has since gone kaput, and his post is currently empty. How did Sam Spade, while pointing to Cuzzy's image in the "Quote" box that Sam used, manage to have access to this now-dead image? (Is Sam Spade like Gandalf?)


One of the four policemen leads was played by actor Gregory
Walcott, here seen strong-arming our lady. Was this poor
Beverly's fate, to keep getting strong-armed?

The second image from the "Quote" box above came from SanteeFats (Post #14, 2018), who charmingly wrote, "I remember this nice looking lady," and it turned out this "nude" view (if not for the damned towel) was from a short-lived cop show (starring Robert Lansing and Norman Fell) called 87th Precinct, or to be more exact, its 1961 episode entitled, "Killer's Payoff" (where Beverly may have played one of three suspects in a case involving a murdered blackmailer). More views from that episode (where she unfortunately wears more than a towel) may be seen above.



With Johnny Sheffield in KILLER LEOPARD.

The "Quote" box's initial photo of the lady enticingly lounging in a bathing suit was from Killer Leopard (1954), where Beverly (in her first motion picture leading role) played a Hollywood starlet who goes into the jungle to look for her lost husband (a crook), and she is helped by Bomba the Jungle Boy, played by Johnny Sheffield (seen above; he was in all twelve "Bomba" films), who was "Boy" from the Weismuller Tarzan flicks. I have a feeling Beverly just may have made Bomba forget about being a boy. (And a big boy he was.)



CURUCU, BEAST OF THE AMAZON (1956); the actress said making this one was "hell."

In case you may have figured the view from Killer Leopard was the last time Beverly lounged in a bathing suit for the benefit of the screen, think again; she had another opportunity (among others) to show off, as seen in the first photo above. The film was Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956), shot mainly in the wilds of Brazil's Amazon rainforest (where she later mentioned a lot of bugs had bitten her. If you were a bug, wouldn't you?), and the actress played a scientist who seeks a cancer cure, while additionally helping to investigate why plantation workers are getting harmed; the rumor centers on a mythical bird-like creature. Ms. Garland, who was required to scream a lot in this film, was not told at the time that the snake from the second photo, a boa constrictor, could have easily squeezed her to death had a pair of native boys on each end to hold the head and tail loosened their grip. (She explained that even if its head were to be cut off, the reptile would not have relaxed its muscles until a day later.)



Swamp Women (1956), directed by Roger Corman (for whom the actress did five pictures in less than two years), was a low-budgeter about three female cons busting out of the joint (Beverly said to be the baddest) to retrieve their stolen cache of diamonds, with an undercover cop (Carole Mathews) tagging along.


Mike Connors in second, as he deals with the SWAMP WOMEN.

These caps came from the film's trailer, and in the last one, Beverly has just slapped the cop. The first lobby card from above shows Beverly slapping another lady (I think that's Beverly, anyway), and the painting at the left of the card shows her holding a gun to Mike Connors, who is their hostage; he gets slapped around, too. The ladies come to realize Connors is a handy hunk, and Beverly may be seen (in the second view from directly above) making a play for the he-man. Beverly would appear three times in Connors' Mannix years later, and the final shot (from photos below) shows her with Mike in the 1968 episode called "Deadfall: Part 1."


Mike Connors in last, a dozen years older.

In Gunslinger (1956), Ms. Garland played the wife of a frontier marshal who takes over as law lady when he is killed. The actress has been quoted as stating, "Of my Corman films, I like Gunslinger best... I liked playing the marshal and everything that went with that. I remember I had a love scene with John Ireland in a tree. It was the first scene we shot and it was early in the morning and our teeth were chattering. And as we were saying our lines, these huge red ants started biting the livin' hell out of us—you can actually see the ants crawling on us when you watch the picture." (Bugs again. Beverly could never get rid of them.)


Corman regular Jonathan Haze ("Seymour" from 1960's cult classic, THE LITTLE
SHOP OF HORRORS), who played the slimeball from NOT OF THIS EARTH, is seen at
left in the first photo from GUNSLINGER; also shown are actors Chris Alcaide and Martin
Kingsley. The hero, John Ireland, may be seen in the next image. Beverly looks great.

Beverly had another shot at lounging around in a bathing suit (this time it's a bikini) in Naked Paradise (1957), another Corman production. A criminal charters a schooner to get off a Hawaiian island to escape a botched robbery, and his girlfriend (Beverly) falls for the boat's captain (manly Richard Denning). Shot for a hundred grand in two weeks, Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze played the criminal's henchmen.


Member "Span4f" has presented screencaps of this flick in Post #5.


Most of what's below are my screencaps from one of Beverly's greatest claims to fame, also directed by Roger Corman, Not of This Earth (1957). Beverly was pleased with this film, feeling it offered a lot of mystery. (Alien of a dying species researches if his kind may sustain themselves on earth; if yes, earth will then be in line to have had it.)



The actress explained, "Paul Birch, the title character, had to wear these very primitive contact lenses — he could only have them in for short periods of time because they hurt his eyes — and that, combined with Roger's fast-paced schedule, made him very unhappy. Finally, he walked off the picture. They had to dress a stand-in and film him from behind. I remember I had a scene where I jumped into a swimming pool and another where I put on my stockings, both considered quite sexy for their day. But, of course, nothing compared to now."



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Member "Victor584694" treated the thread to a little more of the "stocking" scene, in 2014's Post #6.


Paul Birch as the scary alien may be seen in the final wonderful photo.

Two more films from the same period; Beverly: "The Alligator People was the last feature I did for several years, and that was fun. I adored Lon Chaney and was fascinated by his stories about his father."


THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE (1959); Chaney seen in first, and Richard Crane, as her scaly-skinned husband, is in the last two.


Sudden Danger (1955) appears to have been a well done mystery, with Bill Elliott as a detective (seen in both images below; is Beverly once again getting strong-armed, this time by the cop?) who suspects a suicide is a murder, and the victim's blind son (Tom Drake, pictured in last) is the killer. Beverly Garland plays Drake's girlfriend.



The biopic The Joker Is Wild (1957, with Frank Sinatra as comedian Joe E. Lewis; Beverly played the wife of his piano player, and in a gritty way) was (in her words) "the last really big movie I did." In that same year of release, she was called to do a television series entitled Decoy, in the role of an undercover policewoman — years before Angie Dickinson.


DECOY

Although shot on the streets of New York City, the syndicated program was not sold in either New York and California, the biggest entertainment hubs of the USA (implying the industry didn't get to know of Beverly's work, to help her get further roles). They were only aware that she starred in a TV show, and that was practically a death blow (since in those days, TV actors didn't do movies).

Decoy






As a result, beginning in the 1950s' last couple of years, Beverly was forced to focus mainly on television work. If you look at her filmography (where she appeared in nearly two hundred vehicles in all, not counting individual TV show episodes), the wide range of programs (many well known) that she found work in for the next few decades is highly impressive.

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Making goo-goo eyes with Ross Martin in the first, from THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

Among many examples, the actress played a mobster's girlfriend in the 1960 episode ("The Four of Us Are Dying") of The Twilight Zone, where she, at thirty-four, looked sensational. (See Wendigo's captures from 2021's Post #16 for more.) The next photo seen above is from a 1977 episode of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries ("Mystery of the Fallen Angels." where Robert England and Jamie Lee Curtis appeared as a biker gang's members); although past the half-century mark here, few should disagree she still came across as pretty striking.


Bev played the mother of Kate Jackson (pictured) in 88 episodes of SCARECROW
AND MRS. KING, from 1983–1987.

One item from her IMDb bio's "trivia" section reads, "Best remembered by the public for her starring roles as Barbara Harper Douglas on My Three Sons (1960) and as Dorothy 'Dotty' West on Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983)."


Bev was Fred MacMurray's squeeze in 74 episodes of MY THREE SONS, from 1969–1972. Second photo
is from the episode, "The Cat Burglars." Also from 1970 is the episode entitled "The Return Of Albert,"
pictured last, where Craig Stevens played a former suitor of the lady.


These views are from the 1977 TV special, A THANKSGIVING REUNION WITH THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY AND MY THREE SONS;
one of the "sons," Barry Livingston, is seen in the final photo — where he seems to be the conservative son of hippie parents.

Here's Ms. Garland in just one of her endless television show appearances, this one being the 1972 episode of Marcus Welby, M.D. called "A Fragile Possession" (she would return three years later in another episode of this program), where the actress portrayed the mother of a model pressured to have an abortion. What a fine-looking lass she was.


With the show's star, Robert Young, in the last pair.

Beverly also appeared in two episodes of The Wild Wild West, one called "The Night of the Cut-Throats" from 1967, where Bradford Dillman (pictured) exacts revenge on a town with his band of outlaws; Beverly played the operator of a saloon. The second episode was called "The Night of the Bleak Island (1969), with Robert H. Harris, seen in the second photo. The story seems to have been inspired by The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Beverly, "in a rare icy role," played a "cold and domineering sister."

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In Beverly's IMDb bio page's "quotes" section, she was reported to have said about Robert Conrad, the main star of The Wild Wild West: "Thank goodness we didn't have any love scenes together. I am taller than Robert Conrad, but then, who isn't? He's a tiny man." That intrigued me, and the web reported Beverly's height as either 5'4" or 5'5". Conrad's height is widely claimed as 5'8", and I couldn't help but be drawn to https://www.celebheights.com/s/Robert-Conrad-3849.html, which offers a wide range of conflicting opinions, although some sounded compelling. One pointed to a Columbo scene where Conrad was barefooted next to Peter Falk, who had shoes on and was thus taller than his reported 5'6", and both appeared to be level, standing eye-to-eye (that is, giving credence to Conrad being around 5'8"). Another wrote, "Bob Conrad himself says his height is '5 feet 4 and 1/4 inches', in the extra materials to the DVD set 'Wild Wild West: The Complete Series.'" Hey, you only have Beverly to blame for making me go off on this irrelevant track.


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.................................................. ..............................................(Last: photo by Erik Hein.)

Beverly was also a fixture on game shows. Above, seen as a panelist on Match Game (from 1973, where she appeared in five episodes; she appeared in another five episodes when this show was revived in 1990); doesn't she look stunning? The third photo is of Beverly Garland appearing in one of two 1984 episodes of Family Feud, entitled "Adventure Heroines vs. Adventure Heroes." The one standing at far right (Yvonne Craig) was definitely a heroine (as Batgirl), but what exactly qualified Beverly and the three others (Lindsay Bloom, Patricia McPherson, Phyllis Davis) as "adventure heroines"?



First photo features Ross Martin, Dennis Weaver and Sebastian Cabot.

In addition, Beverly was in 60 episodes (between 1962–1964) of a show not known to me, called Stump the Stars, where celebrities played "Charades." An admirer of the actress who operates this Facebook page (and who touts a book about her called Beverly Garland: Her Life & Career; maybe the site operator wrote this book) had the following to say:



"Beverly was a pure treasure — on so many levels. And so is this photo! Her immediate popularity as a regular on producer/host Mike Stokey's 1962 CBS-TV charade show STUMP THE STARS prompted Stokey to send Beverly on a promotional tour for the series. In between filming shows, Beverly toured the Pacific Northwest guesting on local talk shows and doing interviews for newspapers, magazines and radio programs. It was in Sacramento that Beverly readily agreed to an impromptu newspaper feature demonstrating, in a series of photos, her unique pantomime abilities! Beverly was game for anything and always up for a challenge. Her animated personality made her a natural on STUMP THE STARS — and in this promotional photo!" (This would be the photo above, where she's standing so cutely.)


Those of you who enjoy seeing pretty gals on their hands and knees, please raise your hands.

It was revealed on the site that some episodes were put up on YouTube, and I grabbed these frames from one of them. If you watch, you will see the lady had a great, fun-loving personality. Now here's what the Facebook admirer wrote about the following photo:



"Beverly had a wonderfully raucous laugh that would light up a room - and your heart! Which is why I always loved seeing her on talk shows and game shows. That was the real Beverly Garland. She had a zest for life that exuded positivity. Looking at this photo, you can just about hear that wonderful laugh."



Although her mainstay came to be television, the actress would show up in feature films now and then. She had a small role in The Mad Room (1969, with Stella Stevens and Shelley Winters), playing a depressed and boozy wife (also pregnant, at the time Beverly Garland was herself pregnant, at the age of forty-three).


Anthony Perkins (pictured) was very protective of Beverly in PRETTY
POISON, concerned about a stunt she was called to make.

Beverly Garland made a bigger splash as Tuesday Weld's mother in Pretty Poison (1968); things would not end well for our lady in this movie. (The beautiful Tuesday is in the middle, in the shot above.)



(Photos by Jim Frank.)

Throughout her life, the actress was involved with much charity work. In these photos, she looked mighty glamorous while attending "Evening with the Stars with Cheryl Ladd," a fundraiser for kids held in Beverly Hills on March 5, 1979.



Toward the end of her life, Beverly Garland appeared in the Chiller Theatre Dead of Winter Expo in 2006, as seen in the photo below (by Bobby Bank). While composing this post, I have made use of the 1993 Femme Fatales article from Post #18 (written by actress Debbie Rochon, who did a fine job), as well as this very informative piece that appeared in The Quad-City Times, from Iowa. It ended with: "Beverly Garland never became a super star, but she enjoyed a long and successful career the likes of which most actors can achieve only in their dreams."















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