Actress Beverly Garland dies at 82
LOS ANGELES Garland died Friday at her Hollywood Hills home after a lengthy
illness, her son-in-law Packy Smith told the Los Angeles Times.
Garland made her film debut in the 1950 noir classic "D.O.A.,"
launching a 50-year career that included 40 movies and dozens of
television shows.
She gained cult status for playing gutsy women in low-budget
exploitation films such as "The Alligator People" and a number of
Roger Corman movies including "Gunslinger," "It Conquered the
World" and "Naked Paradise."
"I never considered myself very much of a passive kind of
actress," she said in a 1985 interview with Fangoria magazine. "I
was never very comfortable in love scenes, never comfortable
playing a sweet, lovable lady."
Garland showed her comedic chops as Bing Crosby's wife in the
short-lived sitcom "The Bing Crosby Show" in the mid-'60s.
She went on to be cast in "My Three Sons" as the second wife
of MacMurray's widower Steve Douglas during the last three seasons
of the popular series that aired from 1960 to 1972.
Her television credits also include "Remington Steele,"
"Scarecrow and Mrs. King," "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of
Superman," "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and "7th Heaven."
Garland was born Beverly Fessenden in Santa Cruz, Calif., in
1926, and grew up in Glendale. She became Beverly Garland when she
married actor Richard Garland. They were divorced in 1953 after
less than four years of marriage.
In 1960, she married real estate developer Fillmore Crank, and
the couple built a mission-style hotel in North Hollywood, now
called Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn. Garland, whose husband died
in 1999, remained involved in running the North Hollywood hotel.
She was the honorary mayor of North Hollywood and served on the
boards of the California Tourism Corp. and the Greater Los Angeles
Visitors and Convention Bureau.
