Beverly Garland | B-movie actress, 82

Beverly Garland, 82, a B-movie actress who starred in 1950s cult hits like

Swamp Women

and

Not of This Earth

and went on to play Fred MacMurray's TV wife on

My Three Sons

, died Friday at her home in Hollywood Hills, Calif.

Ms. Garland made her film debut in the 1950 noir classic D.O.A., launching a 50-year career that included 40 movies and dozens of television shows.

She gained cult status for playing gutsy women in low-budget exploitation films such as The Alligator People and a number of Roger Corman movies including Gunslinger, It Conquered the World and Naked Paradise.

Ms. Garland showed her comedic chops as Bing Crosby's wife in the short-lived sitcom The Bing Crosby Show in the mid-'60s.

She went on to be cast in My Three Sons as the second wife of MacMurray's widower Steve Douglas during the last three seasons of the popular series that aired from 1960 to 1972.

- AP