Vera Miles: The Hitchcock Blonde Who Got Away

Though actress Vera Miles (b. 1929) starred in several classic films (including The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Psycho), and her acting career spanned over 50 years, she is surprisingly little known. McKittrick (Howling to the Moonlight on a Hot Summer Night) wants to change that with this first full-length biography. After taking third runner-up in the Miss America pageant, Miles went to Hollywood in 1949, where a television performance drew Alfred Hitchcock’s attention; he chose her to star in The Wrong Man and later, Psycho. It didn’t hurt that she looked like Grace Kelly, one of Hitchcock’s other protégées who left films to become a princess. Miles was set to star in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, but life got in the way, and the role was famously played by Kim Novak. Though Miles starred in other films and appeared in nearly 200 TV shows, she never attained the stardom of Kelly or Novak. Not one for self-promotion, she had no regrets about her lengthy career.