Vera Miles Movies and Career Information

Vera Miles (born August 23, 1930) is an American film actress who gained popularity for starring in films such as The Searchers, The Wrong Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Psycho and Psycho II. Miles was born as Vera June Ralston in Boise City, Oklahoma, the daughter of Burnice (née Wyrick) and Thomas Ralston. She grew up in Pratt, Kansas, and later, in Wichita, Kansas, where she worked nights as a Western Union operator-typist and graduated from Wichita North High School in 1947. She was crowned Miss Kansas in 1948, placing third in the Miss America contest. She moved to Los Angeles where, in 1950, she landed small roles in film and television. These included a minor part as a chorus girl in Two Tickets to Broadway (1951), a musical starring Janet Leigh, with whom Miles would go on to co-star nine years later in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film, Psycho. Attracting the attention of several producers, the actress was put under contract at various studios where she posed for cheesecake and publicity photographs, as was standard procedure for most up-and-coming Hollywood starlets of the era. Under contract to Warner Bros., Miles was cast in films such as The Charge At