Actress Beverly Tyler, a leading lady of mostly B-films of the 1940s and 1950s, died of pulmonary embolism in Reno, Nevada, on Nov. 23. She was 78.
Beverly Tyler landed an MGM contract in the mid-1940s, but she was relegated to just a few supporting or decorative leading-lady parts before she and the studio parted ways before the decade was over.
Tyler's most prestigious film appearances during that period were those in The Green Years (1946), starring Charles Coburn and Tom Drake; and The Beginning or the End (1947), a melodrama about the first A-bomb, with Drake, Robert Walker, and Brian Donlevy.
Among her other films, all minor fare, were The Fireball (1950), with Mickey Rooney; the B Western The Battle at Apache Pass (1952), with John Lund and Jeff Chandler; Voodoo Island (1957), opposite Boris Karloff; and, further down the cast list, Chicago Confidential (1957), with Brian Keith and Beverly Garland.
In the mid-1950s, Tyler was featured in the TV series Big Town. She later guested in several other series (Mike Hammer, Bonanza, Hazel) before her career came to an abrupt halt in 1961.
The following year, she married TV director Jim Jordan, with whom she eventually settled in Reno.