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By AMY FRANCIS
Vera Miles Says:
Tm glad I was poor
Poverty and loneliness as a child gave Vera an inner strength and a drive for success that have carried her to the top
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photos by Gene Trindl, Topix
MR. AND MRS. Cordon Scott and their family. Children are Kelle/, 6, Mike, 1, Debbie, 8.
4 EARLY hardships etched character and depth into the face and personality of Vera Miles.
IT'S AN odd thing, but everyone reacts differently to poverty. With some people, early hurts built up an attitude of defeat and self-pity. In others, it propels them forward like a bullet. Vera Miles, who stars with Jimmy Stewart in "The F.B.I. Story," was in the latter class.
Vera's childhood was dogged with the kind of anxiety that hung over her like a grey fog. Instead of carefree school days, she knew the feeling of not belonging.
From the moment she was born, she was tragedy's child. Only a few weeks before she came into the world, a sister had died under terrifying circumstances. The father, mother and four children had been cooped up in a little shack in the Panhandle section of Oklahoma. There was always tension and confusion in the crowded place, and one night the youngest daughter grabbed spme pills which had been prescribed in small doses for the father, and gulped a handful like candy. That night, the child woke up screaming and died.
Shortly after this tragedy, when both parents were still numbed with despair and guilt, Vera was born. Instead of celebrating her birth with joy, her parents were torn with grief and doubts. The misunderstanding between her parents mounted, and when Vera was a year old, the marriage dissolved.
Family life, drab as it had been before, became even worse. They moved to Pratt, Kansas, where Vera's mother got a job as a maid at the hotel and was gone from morning until midnight. Vera's older sister, Thelma, took care of her and Vera remembers that she had to learn to be quiet and keep out of the way. Later, Thelma married when she was only 15 and left the dreary environment. Her two brothers went to a CCC camp. This left little Vera with no one to watch after her at home, so her mother would often take her along when she went to work.
In order not to be a nuisance on the job, Vera had to learn to duck into closets not to
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