Lillian Miles

{{Infobox person

| name = Lillian Miles

| image = Lillian Miles as Blanche.png

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| caption = Lillian Miles in Reefer Madness (1936)

| birth_name = Lillian Bradley

| birth_date = {{birth date|1907|8|1}}

| birth_place = Oskaloosa, Iowa, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1972|2|27|1907|8|1}}

| death_place = Yucca Valley, California, U.S.

| resting_place = Montecito Memorial Park, San Bernardino County, California

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| education =

| alma_mater = Drake University

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| years_active = 1932–1953

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}}

Lillian Miles (August 1, 1907 – February 27, 1972) was an American actress in several films in the 1930s.

Biography

Miles was born Lillian Bradley on a farm near Oskaloosa, Iowa, on August 1, 1907.{{cite web |title=Lillian Miles |url=https://www.allmovie.com/artist/lillian-miles-vn15297138 |website=AllMovie |access-date=May 17, 2024}} She attended high school in Des Moines and graduated from Drake University.{{cite news |title=Name suits after all |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-south-bend-tribune-lillian-miles/147569104/ |access-date=May 17, 2024 |work=The South Bend Tribune |agency=Associated Press |date=November 19, 1932 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240517182830/https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-south-bend-tribune-lillian-miles/147569104/ |archive-date=May 17, 2024 |page=5|via = Newspapers.com }}

Miles began singing in Des Moines, and before she acted in films she was successful as a vocalist in Boston, Hollywood, and Philadelphia.

Aside from singing and performing in the "Continental" musical number in The Gay Divorcee (1934), starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Miles's film career was confined to low-budget 'B' pictures. However, she has something of a cult following nowadays for her performance in the anti-dope exploitation movie Reefer Madness, made in 1936. It is she who appears in the film's sequence that has her playing an increasingly frenzied piano solo while Dave O'Brien shouts "play it faster, faster!"

In December 1932, Miles appeared in person at a film theater in Kansas City while another theater there was showing one of her films. An article in The Kansas City Star about her live performance at the Mainstreet Theater said that her singing of torch songs might help to revive vaudeville. The review said, "She is pretty and her modern personality is a welcome relief" from entertainers who were seen repeatedly.{{cite news |title=The Theaters' Melancholy Pre-Christmas Days Are Here |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-kansas-city-star/147562016/ |access-date=May 17, 2024 |work=The Kansas City Star |date=December 4, 1932 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240517162801/https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-kansas-city-star/147562016/ |archive-date=May 17, 2024 |page=8 D|via = Newspapers.com }} Meanwhile, the review of her on-screen performance in Man Against Woman called her work as a torch singer "more than satisfying". It added, "Miss Miles can perform a hard-boiled part with sympathy and realism and her voice records beautifully."

After a role in an Edgar Kennedy short in 1939 (Baby Daze), she retired from the screen.

Miles died on February 27, 1972, in Yucca Valley, California. She was cremated, and her remains are at Montecito Memorial Park in Colton, California.{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Scott |title=Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed. |date=September 5, 2016 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-7992-4 |page=514 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7-DgDAAAQBAJ&dq=Lillian+Miles+actress&pg=PA514 |access-date=May 17, 2024 |language=en}}

Partial filmography

==References==

External links

{{IMDb name|id=0587178|name=Lillian Miles}}

Category:1907 births

Category:1972 deaths

Category:American film actresses

Category:20th-century American actresses

Category:Drake University alumni