Betty Miles

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Betty Miles (born January 11, 1910 in Santa Monica , California as Elizabeth Harriet Henninger , † June 9, 1992 in Hughson , California) was an American actress , stuntwoman and equestrian artist , who from the late 1930s, but mainly in the first half of the 1940s in various US film productions, mainly in Westerns .

Following her film career, Miles worked as a teacher for 30 years before she retired in 1976 at the age of 66.

life and career

Betty Miles was born on January 11, 1910 to George Henry T. and Harriet Henninger in the then small town of Santa Monica in western Los Angeles County . On her father's farm, a cattle drover and cattle breeder, she learned to ride horses from an early age . Until she enrolled at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in the fall of 1927 , nothing is known about her previous life. At university, she pursued various college activities and was a member of the debating club , which she led initially as a manager and in her senior year as team captain. She was also a member of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority , was a member of the Touchstone Drama Shop acting troupe , was part of the El Rodeo yearbook team, was a member of the staff of the student newspaper Daily Trojan and was in the press club and chaired the junior prom committee. Especially in her senior year, Miles was considered the most experienced debater of the USC Trojan Debate Squad and won various prizes as such. Shortly before graduating in 1931, her mother died of a sudden death while Betty Miles was preparing for a two-week debate tour against various other colleges and universities. Because of this, she was unable to continue leading her team and dropped out of this tour. In 1931 she finally finished her college career and graduated from the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences with a Bachelor of Arts . Her main subject was Speech , while minor subjects were Monoeconomics and Polyscience .

After leaving the University of Southern California, Betty Miles got a job at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena , according to other sources in her hometown of Santa Monica. Until 1936 she appeared in various plays before she had her first film appearance the following year. Due to her riding skills, which she learned in early childhood, she was employed as a rider in the black comedy Denen ist nothing sacred by producer David O. Selznick and directed by William A. Wellman based on a script by Ben Hecht . In the film with Carole Lombard and Fredric March , she was seen as the last rider in a nightclub sequence . In the following years she wrote and produced programs for the radio stations KNX and KFL from Los Angeles. One of her jobs included writing and directing a 79 week series on historical American dramas on KNX. In later years she worked for the big companies Columbia Pictures , 20th Century Fox , Universal Studios and Monogram Pictures as an acting instructor for young actors.

Miles spent her own acting career exclusively in Hollywood and was mainly seen in B-Movies for Monogram Pictures . After she was out of sight for several years on the big screen, she appeared in 1940 under the direction of Henry King as a stunt double of Linda Darnell in Chad Hanna with and was in the film and the double of Dorothy Lamour in various riding scenes. To her real breakthrough as an actress she should have come when she was a on the set Western - heroine had observed the problems had to keep her horse in action scenes under control and therefore the scene reshot several times had to. Subsequently, Betty Miles offered to shoot the scene and delighted the crew after she was successful on her first attempt. So she was signed by Robert Emmett Tansey , the film's producer. Under Tansey it was subsequently used in eight of his films for Monogram Pictures. Her first appearance as a film heroine was alongside Tex Ritter in the one-hour western Ridin 'the Cherokee Trail by director Spencer Gordon Bennet . In 1941 she had other appearances as Ellen Brandon in The Return of Daniel Boone , as Laura Dean in Wanderers of the West , as Betty Lane in The Driftin 'Kid , as Betty Dawson in Riding the Sunset Trail and as Betty Gray in Lone Star Law Men . The majority of these films were produced by Tansey.

While she was used as a stunt double for Louise Currie in the twelve-chapter film The Masked Marvel , published in 1943 and directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet , she also came to other acting appearances herself that year. Here, she was seen as in Wild Horse Stampede in the role of Betty Wallace , in Law of the Saddle as Gayle Kirby and The Law Rides Again as Betty Conway . While two of these films were directed by Alan James , Law of the Saddle was directed by Melville De Lay . After she herself was used in Westward Bound and Sonora Stagecoach , two other Tansey productions, in 1944 and again acted alongside Tex Ritter in her last film Die Grenzräuber , her acting career slowly came to an end. After she had worked as a stunt double for Carole Mathews and Rosemary Lane in the riding scenes for Sing Me a Song of Texas in 1945 , Betty Miles withdrew completely from the film business and began a career as a teacher in the Fresno public school system in 1946 .

During her time as an actress, she is said to have lived alone with her two dogs and often rode her own horses in the films. One of her horses, Pinto Sonny, which she rode in the film Lone Star Law Men , was mentioned by name in the opening credits of the film , which was still unusual at the time. At the time, only a few horses were honored, including Tom Keene's horse Rusty and Sugar Dawn's pony Chiquita in the same film . Miles was often used on the side of Tom Keene, where she was by his side in four of the first five films in his Monogram Western series. In addition to Gene Alsace , her friends during this time also included another actor, whom she helped to get smaller roles in Monogram westerns. Before her film career, Betty Miles is said to have attracted attention as a rider when, among other things, she won the Saugus Rodeo, founded in 1926 at what is now the Saugus Speedway , in one year . Among other things, a pregnancy contributed to the end of her career, which she kept secret from those responsible for a long time and only announced it after shooting a film with Tom Keene. Robert Tansey and Frances Kavanaugh were dismayed by this announcement, as Miles could have lost their unborn child during the stunts performed in the film. In order to hide the pregnancy from those responsible, she also wore a corset during the filming to make herself slimmer.

Even before her career as a teacher, Miles was active as an artist in various circuses from 1944 after her acting career ended. In 1944 she worked at the side of her friend and colleague Evelyn Finley for the SL Cronin Circus . She appeared in various performances with her horse Sonny and also had appearances under the horse trainer Mark Smith , who was very well known at the time and who has worked in numerous film productions over the years. At the circus, which was soon closed for financial reasons, she not only acted alongside Evelyn Finley, but also alongside actors such as Tina Harrington , Skeeter Knudson or others. After that, as the Billboard magazine shows, from 1945 she also appeared in Al Dean's Circus , where she appeared again with her horse Sonny. There she also assisted the artist Slim Wiseman with his elephant Bunny. Also according to Billboard magazine from August 1945, she also worked for CR Montgomery's Wild Animal Circus as a horse artist for months . After she was first active as a teacher in the Fresno public school system in 1946, her career shifted to Simi Valley , where she worked as a dean at all-girls schools. She subsequently held similar positions in the school systems of Turlock and Los Angeles. In 1976, Betty Miles, now 66, retired and spent her retirement in Hughson , where she moved in 1966 to be close to her 1942 son, Lynn Rees Miles, and their two grandchildren. Miles died on June 9, 1992 at the age of 82 in the city where she had spent the last 26 years of her life.

Filmography

Film appearances (as an actress)
  • 1937: Nothing Sacred ( Nothing Sacred )
  • 1941: Ridin 'the Cherokee Trail
  • 1941: The Return of Daniel Boone
  • 1941: Wanderers of the West
  • 1941: The Driftin 'Kid
  • 1941: Riding the Sunset Trail
  • 1941: Lone Star Law Men
  • 1943: Wild Horse Stampede
  • 1943: Law of the Saddle
  • 1943: The Law Rides Again
  • 1944: Westward Bound
  • 1944: Sonora Stagecoach
  • 1944: The Border Raiders ( Gangsters of the Frontier )
Film appearances (as a stunt double)

Web links

Footnotes & individual references

  1. ^ Betty Miles in the California Death Index , accessed April 18, 2016
  2. ↑ Mark Smith on thecircusblog.com (English), accessed April 18, 2016
  3. ^ Evidence in the Billboard of April 29, 1944 (English), accessed on April 18, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Miles, Betty
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Henninger, Elizabeth Harriet (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actress, stunt woman, equestrian artist and teacher
DATE OF BIRTH January 11, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Santa Monica , California , United States
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1992
Place of death Hughson , California , United States