‘Queen of Pilots’ Offers Valley Hospitality

Beverly Garland’s maternal instincts link her to some of television’s more memorable sitcom moments.

She played Fred MacMurray’s second wife for three seasons on “My Three Sons,” Kate Jackson’s mother in “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” and most recently, mom to Teri Hatcher on “Lois & Clark, The Adventures of Superman.”

For her extensive screen work--starting with her 1950 movie debut in “D.O.A.,” followed by more than 200 TV and film credits to her name--the Santa Cruz-born actress earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1983.

“I became the good-luck charm of Hollywood,” says Garland. “I did all the pilots. I was queen of the pilots.”

But it’s her signature that twinkles and catches the eyes of motorists each night just west of Universal Studios. For more than 25 years, Garland and her husband, real estate developer Fillmore Crank, have owned and operated Beverly Garland’s Holiday Inn on Vineland Boulevard.

Once a treeless seven-acre field owned by Gene Autry and overrun with chickens, the property was bought for $100,000 by Garland and Crank with the intention of building an apartment complex.

Some good advice and a little intuition, however, led the couple to establish a 200-room hotel designed with an early California Mission feel. Back then it was called Beverly Garland’s Howard Johnson’s.

“When we first built that hotel, people used to say, ‘It’s such a shame you built it here because there’s nothing!’ ” recalls Garland, who has been a Valley resident for 40 years. “Now they say, ‘You’re so smart to have built it there.’ ”

With the success of the Universal Studio tours nearby, Garland took an interest in local businesses and tourism. In 1977, she was appointed honorary mayor of North Hollywood, and recently she was queen of the 1997 NoHo Festival.

After the Los Angeles riots, she became an active member of the Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau’s board of directors.

These days, Garland and Crank, who have two sons and two daughters, live just off Mulholland Highway between the Valley and the Westside, in an area she describes as symbolic of her persona, which is “always on the edge.”