VERA MILES

The prolific career of a hard-working actress.

Vera Miles is best known for three movies she made with celebrated directors John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock: The Searchers, Psycho, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. She also appeared in nearly 200 television shows during a busy 50-year career. Author and journalist McKittrick recounts her life and work in detail, from her “fairly typical” youth in Kansas in the 1940s to her retirement in 1992. In 1948, as third runner-up in the Miss America pageant, Vera Ralston was offered a contract from RKO at $500 a week (roughly $6,500 today). Her career start was rocky: After she quickly married Bob Miles, a driver for Howard Hughes, RKO’s volatile owner, an angry Hughes fired his driver, and soon her contract was sold to Fox. McKittrick documents the ups and downs of her career: directors who cast her, actors she performed with, critics’ assessments, and plot summaries. As Miles became increasingly famous, reports of her personal life filled gossip columns, including divorces, four marriages, and four pregnancies. Family life, McKittrick asserts, was central to her. She wanted “primarily to make a living for herself and her children. Professional respect and stardom would be welcome benefits to that end goal but not her motivating factors.” Still, stardom did come her way, particularly when Hitchcock put her under personal contract. With Grace Kelly giving up acting to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco, Hitchcock needed another sophisticated blonde, and Miles filled the bill. He was disgruntled when she had to withdraw from the starring role in Vertigo when she became pregnant. Although McKittrick’s sources don’t reveal much of Miles’ inner life, he nevertheless offers a comprehensive filmography.

A respectful, well-informed biography.