Vera Miles
Birth : 1929-08-23, Boise City, Oklahoma, USA
History
Vera June Miles (born August 23, 1929) is an American actress. Born in Boise City, Oklahoma, Vera Miles attended school in Pratt, Kansas and Wichita, Kansas. The patrician beauty of Miss Miles won her the title of "Miss Kansas" in 1948, leading soon to small roles in Hollywood films and television series. Fame came to the forthright, spirited Miles when she attracted the attention of two master directors, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford. Ford cast her in the classic western The Searchers (1956) and Hitchcock, who put her under personal contract and hailed her as his "new Grace Kelly", paired her with the great Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man (1956). Hitchcock cast Miles in the potentially star-making role of Judy Barton in Vertigo (1958), but Miles withdrew from the film when she became pregnant. Hitchcock gave Miles a supporting role in another masterpiece Psycho (1960), as did Ford when he cast her opposite John Wayne and James Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), She also starred in such films as Beau James (1957) opposite Bob Hope, The FBI Story (1959) opposite Stewart, Back Street (1961) opposite Susan Hayward and John Gavin and Sergeant Ryker (1968) opposite Lee Marvin, as well as showing her consistently remarkable and versatile talent on dozens of popular television movies and series including The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962), Twilight Zone (1959), The Outer Limits (1963), The Fugitive (1963), My Three Sons (1960), Bonanza (1959), "Columbo" and Murder, She Wrote (1984). In 1983, she reprised her role as "Lila Crane" in the film sequel Psycho II (1983), starring Anthony Perkins. Although, too often, the stunningly beautiful Miles' gifts were underutilized, before her retirement in 1995, hers was a most intriguing and enduring Hollywood career.
Herself (archive footage)
The cast and crew of all four Psycho films recall their time working on the influential horror series, and modern masters of horror reminisce on what the movies stirred in them.
Dr. Ruth Goldin
Tom Beckwith has just quit his job as a police officer in order to study psychology. But his professor, Lauren Porter, is more interested in his criminology abilities than in his progress in psychology. Because of traumatic circumstances during her childhood she is suffering from schizophrenia, and it looks like her other ego has just killed somebody. So Tom Beckwith tries to help her by observing her, combining his professional abilities as an ex-cop and his recently gained knowledge of psychology.
Sophie Kubacki
The story of the hijacking of the Itallian liner Achille Lauro by four militants of the Palestine Liberation Front, in 1985, who demanded the release of several Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisoners. On their hands, lies the fate of several passengers, many Americans included and among them, Jewish American businessman Leon Klinghoffer.
Elaine Corley
Manager of a large metropolitan airport tries to deal with the stress of his job, and the various characters that work for him.
Joan Caper
Ed Okin used to have a boring life. He used to have trouble getting to sleep. Then one night, he met Diana. Now, Ed's having trouble staying alive.
Frances Fairchild
An amnesiac sorority member who has been plagued by a recurring nightmare is stalked alongside other coeds by a killer in a deserted department store where they are completing a hazing ritual.
Kate Keller
Marian Koonan
After a traffic accident Kaylie is in coma for months and her doctors want to try a new procedure on her. To regain her consciousness, they stimulate her brain with the neural patterns of a woman who has just died. It works and Kaylie fully recovers. However, she begins to relive the dying moments of her donor and realizes that she was murdered! Along with her husband and mother, she tries to find out what happened.
Lila Crane Loomis
After years of treatment at a mental institution for the criminally insane, serial killer Norman Bates is finally released. Deciding to move back into his long-dead mother's infamous old house, he soon finds himself tormented by 'her' demands and begins to question his own sanity.
Julie Lawless
Travis McGee is a world-weary private eye trying to help boat skipper friend Van Harder salvage his reputation that sank when his boat ran aground, resulting in a death that might have been faked.
Cat
Bound together by a desire to play "Mazes and Monsters," Robbie and his four college classmates decide to move the board game into the local cavern. Robbie loses his mind, and the line between reality and fantasy fuse into a harrowing nightmare.
Patricia
A syndicate mob boss doesn't realize that his eldest son, Gep, has been informing to the police on the family's dealings in exchange for protection, while Gep's younger brother, Phil, a bank vice president, tries to separate himself from the family's business.
Ida McBride
Ida McBride decides to drill for oil on her ranch, against her son Tom's wishes. A contentious crew of wildcatters arrives, including a stalwart drilling magnate, his tool-pusher and a young roughneck associate, who endeavor to save the ranching empire by trying to bring in a methane gas well.
Irene Elder
Based on a true story, this tells the story of a young woman who is the only survivor of a plane crash in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and her struggle to get to safety despite her injuries, below-freezing temperatures and rough, and at times impassable, terrain.
Clarissa Stewart
Juanito, a boy from Puerto Rico, finds himself in Kentucky and drawn to a thoroughbred horse. He believes the horse can win the Derby and eventually others around him start to think it's possible.
Martha Wagner
The sheer terror and unearthly beauty of a raging forest fire is breathlessly captured in this compelling Irwin Allen production boasting a big-name cast and enough blazing special effects to turn night into day. Involved are a lumber mill owner (Ernest Borgnine), the widowed operator of a forest lodge (Vera Miles), a teacher on a class outing (Donna Mills), a country doctor (Lloyd Nolan), a couple (Patty Duke Astin and Alex Cord) whose shaky marriage is healed when battling the blaze brings out their better natures, and escaping convicts (Neville Brand and Erik Estrada) who use the conflagration to cover their tracks. Like Allen’s crowd-pleasers The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, Fire sizzles with suspense and excitement. Turn up the heat!
Melissa Bryant
Melissa and Jim Bryant live on an Iowa farm with their adult son Chuck, their adult daughter Karen, and their teenage son Wayne, who is a high school sophomore. Wayne is a talented singer and guitarist who dreams of country music stardom. Karen, newly separated from her husband, has recently rejoined the family with her own young son Tommy, who misses his father. This was a pilot film for a proposed television series that was not picked up.
Mrs. Horton
In 1930s Alabama, nine young black men are accused of raping two white women. The judge in the case, unlike the rest of the town, comes to believe that the boys are innocent and, against all advice from his friends and family, sets them free, which turns the entire community against him.
Erica
In this made-for-TV disaster movie, the lives of a group of motorists are chronicled retrospectively after they're involved in a 39-car pile-up on California's Interstate 5 over 4th of July weekend.
Christine Rhodes
A family moves into a new home in an isolated area, and soon realizes that someone--or something--doesn't want them there.
Henrietta MacAvoy
A Wayward Texas cowboy washes up on the beaches of Hawaii and is taken home by an fatherless boy. He saves the family's business while romancing the single mom.
Eleanor Strom
A private detective goes after the kidnappers of his ex-girlfriend's son and becomes involved in a series of murders.
Marcia Carmichael
After being cryogenically frozen for more than 30 years, a woman wakes to find her husband an old man and her children older than she is. Her daughter has also developed a psychotic obsession with her and may be out to kill her.
Ellen Staffo
A group of skiers are trapped inside a runaway train hurtling down a mountainside.
Doris
An Army deserter (James Garner) flees by camel across the desert with a white boy (Clay O'Brien) raised by Indians.
Andrea Glenn
Tom Kovack is a hard-nosed race car driver until a sudden supernatural vision causes a near-fatal crash while he's hurtling down the backstretch at 140 miles per hour. Michele Brent is the woman who convinces Kovack that his visions are significant. She leads him to the manor house that appeared in his vision, which in turn leads him into a world of revenge and murder from beyond the grave. Kovack must tap into his newfound power to conquer the evil forces at work.
Molly Parker
Molly, the shy, romance-starved wife of an arrogant frontier sheriff, finds herself drawn to a prisoner in her husband's jail. This prisoner, a handsome young man named Johnny, plays on Molly's sympathy and convinces her to help him escape. Molly then accompanies Johnny on his cross-country flight but soon learns he's simply been using her. Molly makes the best of the situation, however, and by the time the sheriff's posse catches up with them, Molly shows that she's learned how to assert herself.
Gloria Wilkes
A middle-aged aerospace engineer has his whole life changed when he is suddenly laid off from his job. Unable to find work because of his age and a bad economy, he watches his bills pile up, his wife forced to go back to work and his marriage start to break up.
Lilah Beth Cummings
In this pilot for the 1972-73 series, a detective specializing in missing persons cases finds himself accused of murder after being found unconscious in the apartment of a slain state official.
Rose Staines
A disillusioned housewife on a vacation in the woods is disturbed by her husband continually trying to get her to come home and, more ominously, a mysterious howling at night.
Diana Langston
In this pilot film to the TV series, Cannon investigates the murder of a war buddy to clear the man's wife of suspicion in his death.
Jenny Olson
Michael (Jeff Bridges) drops out of college with the intention of finding himself. When his parents (Carl Betz and Vera Miles) balk, he talks them into joining him in traveling the country and educating themselves about the state of things. They, along with Grandma (Ruth McDevitt) trick out an old Greyhound bus and hit the road. The picaresque plotline brings the family into contact with a variety of colorful characters. The producers of In Search of America never declared outright that the made-for-TV film was intended as a series pilot, but it ends on an ambiguous note with plenty of loose plot ends. In Search of America was first telecast March 23, 1971.
Kate Tanner
Uprooted from their comfortable home in Pennsylvania, James and Kate Tanner, along with their sons, Virgil and Andy, journey to the wild country of 1890s Wyoming to become farmers. Soon, they come face-to-face with tornadoes, bears and wolves. But through the hardships their love for each other endures, even when a local rancher sees the newcomers as "squatters" on his land, and will stop at nothing – including murder – to drive them out.
Laura Ring
After possibly killing a man in a brawl at a farewell party Tony Gunther, an American merchant seaman, is knocked out and wakes up in the apartment of Laura Ring, the secretary of a shipping company.
Madelyn Buckman
The adventures of oil well fire specialist Chance Buckman (based on real-life Red Adair), who extinguishes massive fires in oil fields around the world.
Joan Barnes
Dennis Weaver is a mercenary pilot in the Pacific during WW2. He agrees to help Vera Miles steal the Phillipine treasury of gold away from the conquering Japanese forces.
Melissa Hyde
Sam Moran is a Honolulu charter-boat captain who leads fishing expeditions in the tropical paradise. When his daughter is found murdered at the party of a wealthy young playboy, he seeks the truth about the murder. Convinced the playboy is guilty, he enlists the help of his friend Kittibelle, who runs an alcohol abuse treatment center. Sam runs into a wall of silence obviously built by hush money and islanders fearful of reprisals from the rich and powerful family. The determined dad fights to uncover the information that will land the murderer in jail as he avenges the death of his daughter.
Ann Ryker
During the Korean War Sergeant Paul Ryker is accused of defecting to Communist China and then returning to his unit as a spy. He's court-martialed and sentenced to death but his attorney believes Ryker's innocent and asks for a new trial.
Ellen Wedloe
The Story of a boy and his bear.
Kate Powell
When Ben and Kate Powell rent a haunted New England house by the sea, their son Steve gets blamed for the destruction caused by three unruly ghosts.
Madame Raine De Sala
A biochemist develops a process that reverses ageing but, when he disappears, it's up to Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin to recover or destroy the process before it falls into the hands of the THRUSH.
Vida Downey
Lem Siddons is part of a traveling band who has a dream of becoming a lawyer. Deciding to settle down, he finds a job as a stockboy in the general store of a small town. Trying to fit in, he volunteers to become scoutmaster of the newly formed Troop 1. Becoming more and more involved with the scout troop, he finds his plans to become a lawyer being put on the back burner, until he realizes that his life has been fulfilled helping the youth of the small town.
Lydia (Liddy) Calloway
Story of Cam Calloway and his family, who live in a densely wooded area in New England. Cam dreams of building a sanctuary for the geese that fly over the area each year, and he tries several schemes to buy a nearby lake for this santuary. He is thwarted at every attempt, it seems; he and his son try to get enough furs from their trapping venture to get the money, but the bottom falls out of the fur market. He uses the little money they get for a down payment on the lake, thereby losing their house when he can't make the mortgage payment. They move to the lake, where their friends help them build a cabin. A salesman stops in town, and tries to get the people to sell their land for a tourist venture; Cam is outraged at his tactics and takes desperate measures after he himself is tricked.
Lois Seeger
A gunman whose best friend has been murdered enacts a plan to blackmail the corrupt labor union leader responsible but finds he isn't the only one after his money.
Kassia Paine
After two women poison to death the blackmailer who has been tormenting them, they wind up at the house of a blind man whose eccentric guest believes he has built a working time machine. Soon, the blackmailer is back to torment them all.
Dorothy Williams
A tiger escapes from a circus truck as it passes by a small town, and hides itself in the surrounding woods. This throws the town into a panic and everyone wants the animal killed immediately, except for the daughter of the sheriff. She wants to capture the tiger and put it in a zoo, thereby saving the tiger's life. Her determination starts a nationwide campaign among children to raise the money to buy the tiger from the circus, but first, she, her father and an Indian tiger trainer must find the tiger before the National Guard do, who have orders to kill it on sight.
Hallie Stoddard
A senator, who became famous for killing a notorious outlaw, returns for the funeral of an old friend and tells the truth about his deed.
Liz Saxon
Ambitious but thwarted, Rae Smith meets handsome Marine Paul Saxon, (of the Saxon department store chain), as he passes through Lincoln, Nebraska, on his way home from World War II. There's a definite spark between them but circumstances intervene and he leaves town without her. Later she learns he's married. Determined to make it as a fashion designer, Rae moves to New York and becomes a great success. One day she happens to meet Paul again and again there's that spark but he's still married so, as a form of escape, Rae moves to Rome to set up shop. Once again she meets Paul and finally they begin an actual affair since Paul's shrewish, drunken wife, Liz, won't give him a divorce. Time passes, the affair continues whenever time and place permit, but then, Paul's young son finds out about Rae and Rae's back-street world begins to crumble.
Angela Walsh
The story of a scheme to double-cross the syndicate and steal its money, and of a police commissioner 's efforts to investigate homicides that take place as the scheme unfolds while also fighting corruption in the city government and police department.
Lila Crane
When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.
Daniza
Five Yugoslav women who consorted with the German occupiers are publicly humiliated and banished by the Yugoslav partisans but they take up arms to fend for themselves.
Virginia Killain
After falling in love with an American woman, Virginia Killain, who is engaged to another man, British Naval Commander Max Easton, hatches a plan that will get him enough money to support Virginia in the lifestyle she is accustomed to. Easton's plan is to disappear for a time making it seem that he has defected to the Soviets taking important Naval secrets from his job at the Admiralty and to return and sue the newspapers for slander. Not everything goes as planned for Commander Easton.
Lucy Ann Hardesty
A dedicated FBI agent recalls the agency's battles against the Klan, organized crime and Communist spies.
Lena Anderson
A World War II evacuee (Van Johnson) returns years later to England and finds his father in prison framed for murder.
Betty Compton
The story of Jimmy Walker who became mayor of New York in the '20s.
Rose Balestrero
In 1953, an innocent man named Christopher Emmanuel "Manny" Balestrero is arrested after being mistaken for an armed robber.
Virginia Hanson
A woman falls for a younger man with severe mental problems.
Jean Lennox
Philip Hannon, a blind playwright living in London, overhears part of a conversation , that leads him into a desperate race, to find a kidnapped child. When he gets no help from the police, he along with his butler, and his ex fiancée, attempt to track down the crooks.
Laurie Jorgensen
As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.
The House Without a Name is a 1956 short documentary film written and produced by Valentine Davies for the Motion Picture Relief Fund. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
Virginia
Beat cop Bragan is about to go off duty when he discovers a man standing on the ledge of a hotel more than a dozen stories up. Bragan tries to talk the man, Robert Cosick, down from his threatening perch and in the process learns the reasons for the Robert's suicide attempt.
Laurie McCoy
Former buffalo hunter and entrepreneur Wyatt Earp arrives in the lawless cattle town of Wichita Kansas. His skill as a gun-fighter makes him a perfect candidate for Marshal, but he refuses the job until he feels morally obligated to bring law and order to this wild town.
Jill Hardy
Hunters trespass into Sukulu country, where animals are sacred, posing as photographers.
Linda
A girl owns a horse, and hires a boy as a trainer. The horse enters a race and is injured. The boy takes job at another stable and is semi-seduced by the stable siren. The girl finally rehabilitates the horse then enters it in a big race.
Girl (uncredited)
After the death of her father and the loss of his fortune, Selina takes a job teaching school in the Dutch community of New Holland. She stays with the Pools and teaches young Roelf piano. He has a crush on her, but it is Pervus she marries. Dirk is their only child. After a few years Pervus dies. With a young child and only the farm, Selina begins her quest to grow high quality vegetables. She wants more for Dirk and guides his life until he graduates from college as an architect. As her vegetable label prospers, she sees Paula control Dirk's life as he moves away from creating and into sales, which is not where he wants to go.
Jennie McKeever
A frontier scout leads prisoners on a death mission to save a railroad and rescue two women.
Denny Burke
The newly crowned Rose Bowl Princess and a tough but tender football player find the California Rose Bowl is an area for their budding romance.
Kathy
A college professor begins to suspect that a student's accidental death was tied to his refusal to take part in a traditional "hazing" and was no accident.
Showgirl (uncredited)
A young woman (Janet Leigh) leaves her small hometown in Vermont and travels to New York City with hopes of becoming a Broadway star.
Young Actress (uncredited)
This short film focuses on the job of the Hollywood screenwriter.
Laughing Sergeant's Date (uncredited)
When Willie leaves home to join the war effort he is all ready to become a hero, but he is only frustrated when his posting ends up to be in his home town, and he is recruited into training, keeping him from the action. However, when he finds himself accidently behind enemy lines he unexpectedly becomes a hero after all.
