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Beverly Bentley

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Actress

The Resume

    (February 26, 1930-September 14, 2018)
    Born in Atlanta, Georgia
    Birth name was Beverly Rentz
    Appeared in the films ‘A Face in the Crowd’ (1957), ‘Scent of Mystery’ (1960), ‘C.H.U.D.’ (1984) and ‘The Golden Boys’ (2008)
    Appeared on Broadway in ‘The Heroine’ (1963)
    Appeared as a model or a fashion commentator on the games shows ‘The Big Payoff,’ Beat the Clock and The Price Is Right
    Fourth wife of novelist Norman Mailer (1963-79)

Why she might be annoying:

    She said about her first break – as one of the ‘Toni Twins’ (two similar-looking actresses, with the viewer asked to guess which one had received a Toni home permanent) on Arthur Godfrey’s TV show – ‘They called me a ‘model,’ but I was never a model, and being called a model instead of an actor has haunted me all of my life.’
    She got her stage name unexpectedly when Godfrey introduced her as Beverly Bentley, later telling her the new last name ‘sounds better.’
    She began sleeping with Mailer while he was still married to his third wife.
    She appeared in three of the awful films Mailer wrote and directed – ‘Wild 90’ (1968), ‘Beyond the Law’ (1968) and ‘Maidstone’ (1970).

Why she might not be annoying:

    She got Bob Dylan his first New York gig, opening for John Lee Hooker at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village (April 11, 1961).
    Mailer was constantly unfaithful; she noted, ‘Three days after bringing home our baby, he had an affair.’
    Mailer refused to cast her as the lead in his play ‘The Deer Park’ because he did not want to watch doing love scenes with an actor.
    During the filming of ‘Maidstone,’ she had to break up a real fight between Mailer and Rip Torn.
    She was a founder of the Act IV theater company in Provincetown, Massachusetts. (‘Al Pacino and John Cazale performed there before they became stars.’)

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 6 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 94 Votes: 61.70% Annoying