In Remembrance: Beverly Tyler

     Beverly Tyler, the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player who appeared in a handful of films for the studio, has passed away on November 23, 2005 in Reno, Nevada. She was 78.

     Born Beverly Jean Saul on July 5, 1927 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Tyler studied piano and voice as a young girl. Barely in her teens, she began singing on various radio shows, attracting the attention of MGM Studios. At age 14, MGM offered her a screen test in New York City, which led to a $75 a week contract with the studio. She and her parents quickly relocated to California, where she made her first film appearance in a bit part in The Youngest Profession (1943), a lightweight comedy about two teenage autograph collectors.

     Tyler’s first film of import was 1943’s Best Foot Forward, an adaptation of the Broadway musical, in which she played Miss Delaware Water Gap, the winner of a regional Pennsylvania beauty contest. Although Tyler had been originally come to the studio’s attention because of her voice, this would be her only film role in which she would sing onscreen.

     Tyler would only appear in a handful of film’s during her tenure at MGM, though for part of her time at the studio she was granted a temporary leave of absence to appear on Broadway in the 1945 production The Firebrand Of Florence. She drew positive notices for her portrayal of a Scottish girl in The Green Years (1946). The following year she appeared opposite Peter Lawford in My Brother Talks To Horses, before making her final film at the studio, the docudrama The Beginning Or The End.

     After appearing in various stage productions, Tyler returned to the big screen in 1950 in the B-western The Palomino, which she followed up by starring opposite Mickey Rooney in The Fireball.

     Tyler would only appear in just over half a dozen more films in her career- the westerns The Cimarron Kid and The Battle At Apache Pass (both 1952), the noirs Night Without Sleep (1952) and Chicago Confidential (1957), the horror film Voodoo Island (1957) with Boris Karloff and the drama Hong Kong Confidential (1958). Her final film was the western The Toughest Gun In Tombstone (1958).