“My Three Sons” Actress Beverly Garland Dies at 82

Beverly Garland’s career spanned more than 50 years which started with her supporting role in the classic D.O.A. in 1950. All total, Garland had been in around 40 movies and numerous television shows.

“Not only was she a terrific actress, she was one of those special gals who was fun to work with,” said Mike Connors, who appeared with Garland in director Roger Corman’s low-budget 1955 film “Swamp Women” and later worked with her when she made guest appearances on his TV detective series “Mannix.”

“She had a great sense of humor, she was very thoughtful and had a great laugh,” Connors said. “You couldn’t help but laugh with her when she laughed.”

Garland played many serious and dramatic roles in her career but is probably best known for her television comedy role “My Three Sons.” She played the second wife of MacMurray’s character, widower Steve Douglas, during the last three seasons of the popular series, which aired from 1960 to 1972.

“The only thing that bothers me is that everybody loves this character so much,” Garland told The Times in 1969. “I don’t remember anybody loving me all that much.”

Early in her career, Garland played undercover New York police officer Casey Jones in the 1957-59 syndicated series “Decoy,” said to be the first American TV police series built around a female protagonist.

Actress Beverly Gardland’s credits included roles in films such as “The Joker Is Wild” (1957), “Pretty Poison” (1968), “Where the Red Fern Grows” (1974) and “Airport 1975″ (1974).

But her starring roles in low-budget exploitation films in the ’50s such as “The Alligator People” gave her actual cult status.

For Corman, she starred in five films in the 1950s: “Gunslinger,” “It Conquered the World,” “Naked Paradise,” “Not of This Earth” and “Swamp Women.”

“Part of what made her a favorite of B-movie fans was that she was seldom a shrinking violet in her movies,” Tom Weaver, a science-fiction and fantasy film expert, told The Times. “In fact, she was just the opposite.”

In “It Conquered the World,” “she grabs a rifle and goes gunning for the monster in its own lair. In ‘The Alligator People,’ she chases an alligator man into the swamp, and so on,” he said.

“She didn’t play the demure, reserved heroines very well,” Weaver said.

Beverly Garland is survived by four children, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Plans for a memorial service are pending.

Images: WENN

Source:news