Vera Miles

Acting • Born 1930-08-23

Acting2Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

Biography

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.

Filmography

172 credits

Man on the Ledge

Movie • 1955

Virginia

Psycho

Movie • 1960

Lila Crane

The Searchers

Movie • 1956

Laurie Jorgensen

Psycho II

Movie • 1983

Lila Loomis

Roughnecks

Movie • 1980

Ida McBride

Into the Night

Movie • 1985

Joan Caper

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Movie • 1962

Hallie Stoddard

The Wrong Man

Movie • 1956

Rose Balestrero

Hellfighters

Movie • 1968

Madelyn Buckman

Mazes and Monsters

Movie • 1982

Cat

The Horror Show

Movie • 1979

(archive footage)

Follow Me, Boys!

Movie • 1966

Vida Downey

The Spirit Is Willing

Movie • 1967

Kate Powell

Those Calloways

Movie • 1964

Lydia (Liddy) Calloway

Autumn Leaves

Movie • 1956

Virginia Hanson

Back Street

Movie • 1961

Liz Saxon

The Initiation

Movie • 1984

Frances Fairchild

One Little Indian

Movie • 1973

Doris

A Tiger Walks

Movie • 1964

Dorothy Williams

23 Paces to Baker Street

Movie • 1956

Jean Lennox

The Castaway Cowboy

Movie • 1974

Henrietta MacAvoy

The FBI Story

Movie • 1959

Lucy Ann Hardesty

24 Hour Psycho

Movie • 1993

Lila Crane (archive footage)

In Search of America

Movie • 1971

Jenny Olson

The Strange and Deadly Occurrence

Movie • 1974

Christine Rhodes

Tarzan's Hidden Jungle

Movie • 1955

Jill Hardy

Fire!

Movie • 1977

Martha Wagner

A Touch of Larceny

Movie • 1960

Virginia Killain

The Hanged Man

Movie • 1964

Lois Seeger

Beau James

Movie • 1957

Betty Compton

Separate Lives

Movie • 1995

Dr. Ruth Goldin

Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues

Movie • 1984

Kate Keller

Five Branded Women

Movie • 1960

Daniza

Pride of the Blue Grass

Movie • 1954

Linda

Kona Coast

Movie • 1968

Melissa Hyde

Web of Evidence

Movie • 1959

Lena Anderson

Wichita

Movie • 1955

Laurie McCoy

Journey to the Unknown

Movie • 1969

June Wiley

One of Our Spies Is Missing

Movie • 1966

Madame Raine De Sala

Baffled!

Movie • 1973

Andrea Glenn

The Charge at Feather River

Movie • 1953

Jennie McKeever

And I Alone Survived

Movie • 1978

Irene Elder

The Wild Country

Movie • 1970

Kate Tanner

A Great American Tragedy

Movie • 1972

Gloria Wilkes

For Men Only

Movie • 1952

Kathy

Jigsaw

Movie • 1972

Lilah Beth Cummings

Our Family Business

Movie • 1981

Patricia

The Unknown

Movie • 1964

Kassia Paine

When Willie Comes Marching Home

Movie • 1950

Laughing Sergeant's Date (uncredited)

Two Tickets to Broadway

Movie • 1951

Showgirl (uncredited)

So Big

Movie • 1953

Girl (uncredited)

Gentle Giant

Movie • 1967

Ellen Wedloe

Cannon

Movie • 1971

Diana Langston

International Airport

Movie • 1985

Elaine Corley

A Howling in the Woods

Movie • 1971

Rose Staines

BrainWaves

Movie • 1983

Marian Koonan

Molly and Lawless John

Movie • 1972

Molly Parker

The Lawbreakers

Movie • 1961

Angela Walsh

The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro

Movie • 1989

Sophie Kubacki

The Rose Bowl Story

Movie • 1952

Denny Burke

The Screen Writer

Movie • 1950

Young Actress (uncredited)

Sergeant Ryker

Movie • 1968

Ann Ryker

It Takes All Kinds

Movie • 1969

Laura Ring

Run for the Roses

Movie • 1977

Clarissa Stewart

Live Again, Die Again

Movie • 1974

Marcia Carmichael

Smash-Up on Interstate 5

Movie • 1976

Erica

The Underground Man

Movie • 1974

Eleanor Strom

Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys

Movie • 1976

Mrs. Horton

State Fair

Movie • 1976

Melissa Bryant

Mission Batangas

Movie • 1968

Joan Barnes

Runaway!

Movie • 1973

Ellen Staffo

The House Without a Name

Movie • 1956

Travis McGee

Movie • 1983

Julie Lawless

Legacy of Screams: The Evolution of Horror Movies

Movie • 2025

Self - (archive footage)

Recoil

Movie • 1963

Lucy

Murder, She Wrote

TV • 1984

Elizabeth Gates

Magnum, P.I.

TV • 1980

Joan Gibson

Movin' On

TV • 1974

Columbo

TV • 1971

Viveca Scott

Burke's Law

TV • 1963

Claudia Sutton

The Colgate Comedy Hour

TV • 1950

Self

Kraft Suspense Theatre

TV • 1963

Ann Ryker

Little House on the Prairie

TV • 1974

Ruthy Leland

The F.B.I.

TV • 1965

Kate Burke

Hawaii Five-O

TV • 1968

Flora Whiting

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

TV • 1979

Tora

The Streets of San Francisco

TV • 1972

Marcus Welby, M.D.

TV • 1969

Helen Wagner

Alias Smith and Jones

TV • 1971

Mannix

TV • 1967

Jean McBride

Hotel

TV • 1982

Medical Center

TV • 1969

Gunsmoke

TV • 1955

Dr. Sam