Beverly Garland

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Beverly Garland

in an episode of Decoy (1958)
Born Beverly Lucy Fessenden
October 17, 1926 (1926-10-17) (age 81)
Santa Cruz, California, U.S.
Occupation Film, television actress
Spouse(s) Filmore Crank
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Beverly Garland (born Beverly Lucy Fessenden on October 17, 1926 in Santa Cruz, California) is a veteran American film and television actress with a half-century of credits, as well as a California businesswoman and hotel owner. The naturally blonde-headed Garland gained prominence for her role as Fred MacMurray's second wife, Barbara Harper Douglas, in the long-running 1960s sitcom My Three Sons (a role she played from 1969 until the series ended in 1972). In the 1980s, she co-starred as Kate Jackson's widowed mother, Dotty West, in the television series Scarecrow and Mrs. King on CBS. She also had a recurring role on the hit WB series 7th Heaven starring Stephen Collins.

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[edit] Early career

Garland's 1950s roles tended to be tough women who could handle themselves in violent situations. 1956 was a busy year for Garland as she played a female sheriff in the Western Gunslinger, a prison escapee in Swamp Women and a scientist's wife who battles an alien in It Conquered the World. (All three movies were directed by Roger Corman and spoofed in the 1990s by Mystery Science Theater 3000.) Garland then starred as undercover police officer Casey Jones in the syndicated TV series Decoy (1957), the first police series on American television created around a female protagonist.

[edit] Television success

Although Garland co-starred with Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld in the 1968 feature film "Pretty Poison", she is best known for playing suburban moms on several TV series. She was Barbara Harper Douglas, second wife of Steve Douglas (Fred MacMurray) for the final three seasons of My Three Sons (1969-72) and Dotty West, mother of Mrs. King (Kate Jackson) on all four seasons of the lighthearted espionage drama Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983-87). Garland also was featured in the successful series Remington Steele as the mother of Stephanie Zimbalist's character, detective Laura Holt.

Her decades of TV guest appearances range from the first-season Twilight Zone episode "The Four of Us Are Dying," about a con artist with a thousand faces (1960), and the long-running family drama 7th Heaven, in which she has a recurring role as Ginger Jackson.

Garland also had a recurring role as Lois Lane's mother on the 1990s TV series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman starring Teri Hatcher.

She appeared on the Mary Tyler Moore Show as a long-ago girlfriend of Lou Grant.

Garland also guest starred in an episode in the final season of Kung Fu. She reprised her earlier Western personae as a tough, gun-slinging widow. Ironically, her character was also the owner of a boarding house; today, Garland owns a hotel in Hollywood.

On radio, Garland is an original member of the reperatory of players belonging to the California Actors Radio Theatre.

[edit] Personal life

In 1999, her successful businessman husband of 39 years, Filmore Crank, died. Since then Garland has combined her acting career with an increased devotion to the hotel Crank built and named for her. Situated on the former Gene Autry property, the sprawling 255-room resort style Beverly Garland Holiday Inn and Conference Center is located in North Hollywood.

Garland has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd.

Her daughter is actress Carrington Garland, known for her portrayal of the third Kelly Capwell on the soap opera Santa Barbara.

Garland still resides in the elegant mid-century Hollywood Hills contemporary house that she and her husband purchased in the early 1960s.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] External links

‹The template Lifetime is being considered for deletion.› 

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Garland"
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