Q & amp;A Garland remains 'Queen'

In her films, she played strong women who often embraced danger.
By GLENN LOVELL
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
There are scream queens, and there are Scream Queens. The average horror/sci-fi heroine of the '50s qualified as Grade-A monster bait, the born victim who shrieked and swooned and then was scooped up by the Mummy or some super-intelligent cucumber from another galaxy. And then there was Beverly Garland, of "It Conquered the World (1956), "Not of This Earth" (1957) and -- new on DVD -- "The Alligator People" (1959).
Like Margaret Sheridan in "The Thing from Another World" and Gloria Talbott in "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" (also on DVD), Garland stood apart from the pack because instead of freezing, or fleeing the scene of terrestrial or extraterrestrial mayhem, she often ran toward it.
Now 77 -- and, ironically, best remembered as Fred MacMurray's dutiful wife on four seasons of the TV series "My Three Sons" -- Garland juggles the occasional guest or recurring stint on TV (Ginger on "Seventh Heaven") with her ownership of the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn in North Hollywood. She's doing her part to relaunch 20th Century Fox's wonderfully chintzy "Alligator People," directed by Roy Del Ruth and co-starring George Macready as the scientist playing with "this wonderful reptilian substance" and Lon Chaney Jr. as a bayou stand-in for Captain Hook.
Scream Queen
Q. You did a video recently on scream queens. But you're not a Scream Queen in the classic sense.
A. No, I'm not. The characters I played were very strong women. When I screamed, I wasn't the scream queen who sees the Mummy and falls down. That's not what I was cast to do. When my husband in "Alligator People" goes into the quicksand, I do scream -- but what are you gonna do in a situation like that?
Q. As bad as things get, you never faint.
A. No, my character makes up her mind to go to this creepy mansion and find her missing husband, and she stays there until she finds him. She asks questions. She doesn't take no for an answer.
Q. She's curious about what's going on in the lab -- usually the man's playground.
A. That's right. Most female characters weren't allowed to have curiosity back then. I was lucky. I got to play TV's first policewoman, in "Decoy." I played hookers, waitresses, nurses -- you name it! I was kind of a pioneer.
Women as victims
Q. Why do you think women are so often cast as victims in these movies?
A. Because the monster is the big thing, and then the man who conquers the world. The women are just there to be pretty and cute; they're just fill-ins. They're the butterfly on the cake. Now and then you get someone like (producer-director) Roger Corman who doesn't do that. I've been lucky enough to not have to play the butterfly on the cake.
Q. And, of course, these movies are made by men for predominantly young male audiences?
A. Yes, young male audiences want to see pretty woman wandering around lost in a swamp crawling with snakes and things. I didn't do that.