Beverly Michaels

Michaels began her career at the age of 16 in 1944 as a showgirl at Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe Nightclub in New York. Her stage debut, also at age 16, was in the play Glad to See You which ran in Philadelphia and Boston from November 1944 to January 1945. After that show closed, she was a dancer in Havana for about a year. Returning to the US, she worked as a chorus girl on Broadway.

Arriving in Hollywood in 1948 at the age of 21 and standing at least 5 feet 9 inches tall (some sources cited 6 feet), Michaels quickly found modeling jobs, in which she was initially credited as "Beverley Michaels." Under contract to MGM Studios, she made her first screen appearance in Mervyn LeRoy's East Side, West Side (February 1950), starring Barbara Stanwyck, Ava Gardner, James Mason and Van Heflin.

Michaels then appeared in two films by independent film director and producer Hugo Haas. The first, the 1951 film noir Pickup, was a surprise hit, albeit a secondary B feature, and launched Haas's career as a Hollywood director. It also had a large part in starting the cycle of bad girl movies of the 1950s, which usually starred blonde sexpots. The New York Times' film reviewer wrote: "Beverly Michaels, a comparative newcomer, is flashily attractive, hard and vulgar as his two-timing mate, but her histrionics are, like the cheap character she portrays, coarse and in need of polishing." Haas' follow-up release The Girl on the Bridge (1951) was his last picture with Michaels.

Michaels went on to win contracts with Columbia and, later, Universal Pictures. She also appeared in a Bowery Boys film No Holds Barred, released by low-budget studio Monogram Pictures in 1952.

In late 1952 Michaels toured Alaska for the USO, singing Christmas carols for the troops. At about this time, she met the director and screenwriter Russell Rouse, who later became her second husband. Rouse cast her in a starring role in his film noir Wicked Woman (1954). The Village Voice praised her performance as "wonderfully lurid," and included the movie in a list of the 25 most memorable cult films.

Later roles included the 1955 noir film Crashout, Hammer Films' Women Without Men (1956) and guest-starring roles in television shows.

In a 1954 newspaper interview, Michaels was questioned about her choice of racy roles:

"One of the penalties, she says, is that some people, especially the wolf type, can't forget it was just a movie. She has had, she says, to give several real-life brush-offs. However, Beverly says, they are things you have to accept. 'I get my share of wisecracks. But I ignore them. You have to. If you're going to play roles like I have, you have to expect to be a target for such remarks. I just pretend I don't hear them. If you're going to be supersensitive, you had better get out of the business...I always have hope that my next picture will make me a decent woman.'"