Born Beverly Fessenden in Santa Cruz, California, Beverly Garland studied dramatics under Anita Arliss, the sister of renowned stage and screen star George Arliss. She acted in little theater in Glendale and then in Phoenix, after her family relocated to Arizona. Garland also worked in radio and appeared scantily clad in a few risque shorts (with titles like "Fanny With the Cheeks of Tan") before making her feature film debut in a supporting part in D.O.A.. Her husbands include actor Richard Garland and land developer Fillmore Crank, who built the two hotels which bear her name.



Starting with "Remington Steele" (1982), she played mothers of three television women with hazardous lives; from the aforementioned show, Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist), Amanda King (Kate Jackson) of "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" (1983) & Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher) of "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" (1993). The Beverly Garland hotels are named after her. Her late husband, Fillmore Crank, was a land developer. Interviewed in "Interviews with B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers: Writers, Producers, Directors, Actors, Moguls and Makeup" by Tom Weaver (McFarland 1988). Her father, James Fessenden, a native of New Orleans, was a member of a prestigious family line that included great-grandfather William Pitt Fessenden, Secretary of the Treasury under President Lincoln. Jim became a salesman. Mother Amelia 'Milly' Scherer was of German descent and was a cosmetician; her father James was a crooner who thrived on one-night stands until the demands of marriage and family moved him into sales work. He later was killed in an auto accident in 1961 in Riverside, California. Performed in little theatre productions in Glendale, California as a teen and for a time studied voice with Anita Arliss, sister of the Oscar-winning actor George Arliss. Married her first husband, a twenty-year-old fisherman named Robert Campbell, on an impulse when she was 18. They eloped to Las Vegas, but divorced about four months later. In the film The Mad Room (1969), Beverly's character in the film was pregnant and so was she at the time of filming (with her son, Jim).