Nobody much remembers Vera Hruba Ralston nowadays - her husband owned Republic Pictures and tried to make her a star in several (mostly lousy) movies made by his company. But because she was there for a short while in the early 1950s, a second Vera Ralston had to change her name to Miles, and it was as Vera Miles that this very different, very talented lady became a star. John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock both thought she had tremendous quality, and they were right - under Hitchcock's direction, she was devastatingly good in the first-ever episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" ("Revenge"), and,
… More the following year, found movie stardom in "The Searchers" for Ford and "The Wrong Man" for Hitchcock. The latter also designed "Vertigo" (perhaps his greatest film) for her to star in, but Kim Novak got the part when a newly-pregnant Miles had to forgo acting for a while. She never quite got to be the superstar she might have been, but her other work for these two master directors - in "Psycho" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" - is outstanding by any standards. Later, she did a massive amount of TV, including such telemovies as "The Strange And Deadly Occurrence" and "Judge Horton And The Scottsboro Boys".
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