‘Vera Miles' Review: The Right Woman for ‘The Wrong Man'
Among the many actresses to have worked with Alfred Hitchcock, Vera Miles lacked the startling beauty of Grace Kelly, the mystique of Ingrid Bergman or the capacity for shrieking of Janet Leigh. In 'Vera Miles,' Christopher McKittrick has written a sympathetic biography of, as his subtitle describes her, 'the Hitchcock blonde who got away.'
Born in 1930 in Boise City, Okla., Ms. Miles endured an upbringing marred by economic woes and her parents' divorce. She eventually found success as a model before her beauty made her a natural émigré to Hollywood at age 18.
Underutilized at RKO and 20th Century Fox, Ms. Miles turned to television. 'It was more or less a matter of making a living,' she told the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. Hitchcock became besotted with the actress based on one of her small-screen appearances and promptly plugged her into his own TV show, 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents.' Persuaded that she possessed the demure but alluring quality he sought, Hitchcock signed her to a contract that promised substantial film work.
Ms. Miles was realistic about her persona. 'I looked straight, and I looked Midwest, and those were the roles I got,' she said. In her two films for Hitchcock, Ms. Miles delivered performances of rare credibility and subtlety: In 'The Wrong Man' (1956), she played a woman whose mental state is ravaged by false accusations of robbery against her spouse; in 'Psycho' (1960), she appeared as the doggedly sensible sibling of Leigh's Marion Crane.
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