Beverly Lunsford (January 5, 1945 - May 22, 2019) was an American actress best known as the female character, Shirley Fletcher, on the
situation comedy
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...
television series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite television, satellite, or cable television, cable, excluding breaking news, television adverti ...
, ''
Leave it to Beaver'', starring
Jerry Mathers
Gerald Patrick Mathers (born June 2, 1948) is an American actor best known for his role in the television sitcom '' Leave It to Beaver'', originally broadcast from 1957 to 1963, in which he played the protagonist Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, the y ...
.
Early life
Lunsford was born in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
.
Career
Lunsford's early career encompassed several stage performances as well as television and movies. She first appeared at the age of twelve in the 1957
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
production of ''The Rope Dancers'' starring
Siobhán McKenna
Siobhán McKenna (; 24 May 1922 – 16 November 1986) was an Irish stage and screen actress.
Background
She was born Siobhán Giollamhuire Nic Cionnaith in Belfast in the newly-created Northern Ireland into a Catholic and nationalist family. ...
and
Art Carney
Arthur William Matthew Carney (November 4, 1918 – November 9, 2003) was an American actor and comedian. A recipient of an Academy Awards, Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and six Primetime Emmy Awards, he was best known for his role as Ed ...
.
Lunsford's big-screen work started soon after. She appeared in several anthology dramas, then progressed onto guest-starring role on television series like ''
National Velvet
''National Velvet'' is a novel by Enid Bagnold (1889–1981), first published in 1935. It was illustrated by Laurian Jones, Bagnold's daughter, who was born in 1921.
Plot summary
''National Velvet'' is the story of a 14-year-old girl named ...
'', ''
My Three Sons
''My Three Sons'' is an American television sitcom that aired from September 29, 1960, to April 13, 1972. The series was broadcast on ABC during its first five seasons, before moving to CBS for the remaining seasons. ''My Three Sons'' chronicl ...
'', and ''
Leave It To Beaver''. She temporarily played the part of Amy Ames Britton Kincaid on the
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
, ''
The Secret Storm
''The Secret Storm'' is an American soap opera that the CBS television network transmitted from February 1, 1954, to February 8, 1974. It was created by Roy Winsor, who also created the long-running soap operas ''Search for Tomorrow'' and ''Love ...
'', during which she filled in for the main star,
Jada Rowland
Jada Rowland (born February 23, 1943) is an American actress and illustrator.
Actress
Rowland was born into a family of actors and artists. She has appeared on Broadway and television, most notably in daytime soap operas. She has appeared as ...
.
She had previously played a role on
The Edge of Night
''The Edge of Night'' is an American television mystery crime drama series and soap opera, created by Irving Vendig and produced by Procter & Gamble Productions.
It debuted on CBS on April 2, 1956, and ran as a live broadcast on that networ ...
Lunsford's starring role came in 1961 when she played in
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...
's topical drama ''
The Intruder.''
The film dealt with race relations in the
American South
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
in the wake of the ''
Brown vs. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'' ruling.
In 1963, Lunsford was cast in
Herbert L. Strock
Herbert L. Strock (January 13, 1918 – November 30, 2005) was an American television producer and director, and a B-movie director of titles such as ''I Was a Teenage Frankenstein'' (1957), '' How to Make a Monster'' (1958), and ''The Crawling ...
's
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
, ''
The Crawling Hand
''The Crawling Hand'' is a 1963 American science fiction horror film directed by Herbert L. Strock, and starring Peter Breck, Kent Taylor, Rod Lauren, Alan Hale and Allison Hayes. It was later featured on the television shows ''Mystery Science T ...
''.
Lunsford made her last screen appearance in 1969, although she still attended various public celebrity-oriented events until her death in 2019.
Filmography
Television
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lunsford, Beverly
1945 births
2019 deaths
Actresses from Atlanta
People from Los Angeles
21st-century American women