Beverly Bentley

American actress and Mailer's fourth wife (1963–1980). Met Mailer on 10 March 1963 in New York; married him on 29 December 1963 in his Brooklyn Heights apartment after his Juarez divorce from Lady Jeanne Campbell on 16 December. Mother of two of Mailer's sons — Michael Burks (b. 17 March 1964) and Stephen McLeod (b. 10 March 1966). A Lee Strasberg–trained actress with stage and film credits before the marriage and after the 1969 separation.

Beverly Bentley met Mailer on 10 March 1963 in New York, per the JML Days revised RTF and the published Days (p. 354). At the time, Bentley was a working actress in the New York theatre and television scene — a Lee Strasberg–trained alumna of the Actors Studio with several screen and stage credits, including TV appearances on Naked City, Route 66, and The Twilight Zone, and a small role in the 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate. Mailer was at the moment in the final months of his third marriage to Lady Jeanne Campbell (the separation had occurred in late fall 1962).

On 16 December 1963 Mailer divorced Lady Jeanne in Juarez, Mexico; on 29 December 1963, he and Bentley married at Mailer’s apartment at 142 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn Heights. The marriage produced two sons:

• Michael Burks Mailer — born 17 March 1964 to Beverly (per the published Days, p. 354). Mailer’s first son after four daughters (Susan, Danielle, Elizabeth, Kate).
• Stephen McLeod Mailer — born 10 March 1966 to Beverly (per the published Days, p. 356). Mailer’s second son.

The Mailers lived at 142 Columbia Heights and, from June 1966, also in the Provincetown house Mailer purchased that summer. Bentley appeared in three of Mailer’s experimental films of 1967–1968: Wild 90 (1967), Beyond the Law (1967), and Maidstone (1968); she also performed in The Deer Park: A Play during its January–May 1967 run at Theatre DeLys in New York. Her acting credits in this period — alongside her work as the mother of Mailer’s two young sons — frame her as one of the figures who shaped the most public years of Mailer’s life.

Mailer separates from Bentley in late summer 1969, per the published Days (p. 356), beginning his cohabitation with the jazz singer Carol Stevens. The Mailer–Bentley divorce, covered in the press in December 1978 (78.5), was finalized in 1980, when Mailer married his sixth wife Norris Church Mailer. After the separation, Bentley returned to her acting career and to raising her sons.

Bentley is named in the multi-name dedication of The Presidential Papers (63.37, November 1963) — the first listed name in Mailer’s roll-call of dedicatees: “Beverly Rentz Sugarfoot Bentley; Jean Louise Slugger Campbell; my daughters: Susan, Dandy, Betsy, Kate; my adopted daughter: Jeanne H.W. the Invaluable Johnson…” — the dedication being completed in mid-1963, before the December marriage, but appearing publicly in November when the book was published.

Related pages

• 1963 | 142 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn | Lady Jeanne Campbell | Michael Burks Mailer | stephen-mcleod-mailer | The Presidential Papers

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Last updated: 2026-06-05