Beverly Garland (October 17, 1926 – December 5, 2008) was a tough and talented American actress who became television’s first female action hero in the 1950s before achieving a second wave of fame as one of TV’s most beloved maternal figures.
Garland’s early career was defined by her trailblazing, no-nonsense roles. She is a legend to cult movie fans for her work with producer Roger Corman, battling aliens in B-movie classics like It Conquered the World (1956) and Not of This Earth (1957). She cemented her status as an action star by playing the lead role of a New York City police officer in the groundbreaking syndicated series Decoy (1957-1958), the first American television series built around a female protagonist.
In the 1960s, she transitioned to more domestic roles, becoming a household name as the new stepmother, Barbara Harper Douglas, for the final three seasons of the long-running hit sitcom My Three Sons. She later endeared herself to a new generation of viewers as Dotty West, the widowed mother of Kate Jackson’s character, on the 1980s spy series Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and had a recurring role on the family drama 7th Heaven.
