Background
Miles, Vera was born on August 23, 1930 in Boise City, Oklahoma, United States.
Miles, Vera was born on August 23, 1930 in Boise City, Oklahoma, United States.
Educated at Wichita North High School.
There is a moment in The Wrong Man (57, Alfred Hitchcock) when the audience’s agony for Henry Fonda is expressed on screen bv the first sign of mental breakdown! in his wife, Vera Miles. Immediately, the film becomes more profound, a marvelous touch of the coldness and sympathy that go hand in hand with Hitchcock. Vera Miles breaks up in a way that show's how seldom one has seen untheatrical distress. She turns plain and inept. No wonder Hitchcock put such ability under contract. But, in truth, she has never been used as searchingly again. Pregnant by her first husband, Tarzan Gordon Scott, she had to miss the part in Vertigo that Hitchcock had groomed her for, and that lifted Kim Novak into immortality.
She had had to change her name to avoid confusion with the less interesting first lady of Republic, Vera Hruba Ralston. She worked on TV and made her debut in For Men Only (52, Paul Henreid). Thereafter she was the woman in Westerns: The Charge at Feather River (53. Gordon Douglas); Wichita (55, Jacques Tourneur); excellent in The Searchers (56, John Ford). She was second fiddle to Joan Crawford in Autumn Leaves (56, Robert Aldrich); 23 Paces to Baker Street (56, Henry' Hathaway); Beau James (57, Melville Shavelson); The FBI Story (59, Mervyn Le Roy); Beyond This Place (59, Jack Cardiff); Five Branded Women (60, Martin Hitt); and A Touch of Larceny (59, Guy Hamilton).
Hitchcock recalled her for the ordeal of seeking out Mrs. Bates at the end of Psycho (60), but left her character underdeveloped. Since then, she has worked in less significant roles: Back Street (61, David Miller); The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (62, Ford); The Hanged Man (64, Don Siegel); The Spirit Is Willing (67, William Castle); Gentle Giant (67, James Neilson); Sergeant Rt/ker (67, Buzz Kulik); One of Our Spies Is Missing (67, E. Darrel Hallenbeck); Kona Coast (68, Lamont Johnson); Helljighters (68, Andrew V. McLaglen); Mission Batangas (68, Keith Larsen, her second husband); The Wild Country (71, Robert Totten); Baffled! (71, Philip Leacock); One Little Indian (73, Bernard McEveety); Runaway (73, David Lowell Rich); and The Castaway Cowboy (74, Vincent McEveety).
She was in Run for the Roses (79, Henry Levin); Roughnecks (80, Bernard McEveety); Our Family Business (81, Robert Collins); Travis McGee (82, McLaglen); Brainwaves (82, Uli Lommel); Mazes and Monsters (82, Steven H. Stem); Psycho II (83, Richard Franklin); Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues (84, Alan Gibson); The Invitation (84, Larry Stewart); International Airport (85, Charles S. Dubin and Don Chaffey); Into the Night (85, John Landis); and The Hijacking of the Achilla Lauro (89, Collins).
Daughter of Thomas and Burnice (Wyrick) Ralston. Divorced; children: Debra, Mistress Kelley Essoe, Michael, Erik.