Happy Birthday, Vera Miles
August 23 is the birthday of Vera Miles, the formidable Viveca Scott of Lovely But Lethal.
Miles’s exact year of birth is surprisingly murky. IMDb gives August 23, 1930, while the Kansas Historical Society—Miles grew up in Kansas and represented the state in the Miss America pageant—lists August 23, 1929. So rather than add another year to the confusion, we’ll simply wish her a very happy August 23 birthday.
Columbo fans know Miles as cosmetics-company founder Viveca Scott, whose desperate quest for a revolutionary wrinkle cream leads to the killing of chemist Karl Lessing, played by a young Martin Sheen. Lovely But Lethal opened Columbo’s third season on September 23, 1973, with Vincent Price, Sian Barbara Allen, Bruce Kirby and John Finnegan among the supporting cast.
Long before Beauty Mark, of course, Miles had become a major Hollywood name. She appeared in John Ford’s The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Alfred Hitchcock cast her opposite Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man and as Lila Crane in Psycho.
Not a bad résumé before you even get to matching wits with Lieutenant Columbo.
Happy Birthday, Stewart J. Zully
August 23 is also the birthday of actor Stewart J. Zully.
Zully appeared three times during the ABC era: as Sewell in Murder, Smoke and Shadows, Sergeant Burke in Sex and the Married Detective, and Investigator #3 in It’s All in the Game.
Zully has more than 60 acting credits, the most recent in 2023.
Remembering Peter S. Feibleman
August 23 also marks the anniversary of the death of writer Peter S. Feibleman, who died on this date in 2015 at age 85.
Feibleman has an unusual distinction in Columbo history: he not only wrote for the show, he allowed himself to be murdered on it.
He contributed to both sixth-season episodes Fade in to Murder and Old Fashioned Murder. On the latter he received the teleplay credit—and also appeared as museum security guard Milton Shaeffer, the unfortunate accomplice whom Ruth Lytton sets up to take the blame for her brother's murder, and kills.
It’s surely one of the more unusual Columbo credits: write the murder mystery, then play one of the murder victims.
Remembering Steven Hill
And August 23 marks another Columbo loss. Steven Hill died on August 23, 2016.
Hill appears in Murder, Smoke and Shadows as Mr. Marosco, the studio executive with whom hotshot director Alex Brady has some uncomfortable dealings.
His Columbo appearance was only a small part of a remarkable television career. Hill had been the original team leader, Dan Briggs, on Mission: Impossible, but to later audiences he became much more familiar as District Attorney Adam Schiff on Law & Order, a role he played for ten seasons.
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