Born Beverly Claire Rentz in Atlanta, Georgia, her parents divorced when she was young, and she moved with her mother to Florida.

[1] She briefly married advertising executive Alex Mumford and worked as hostess and fashion commentator on several TV game shows, such as Beat the Clock, The Big Payoff, and The Price Is Right.

She also worked as a "hand model" for perfume commercials, had been to Ernest Hemingway's birthday party in Spain,[3] and had celebrity boyfriends, including Orson Bean, Eddie Fisher, Andy Griffith, and Miles Davis.

[2][4] In due time, she had her first off-Broadway role as Connie Bliss in Clifford Odets' The Big Knife, in which she starred opposite James Earl Jones.

[5] With director Leo Garen, Bentley founded Act IV in Provincetown, a small theater company that staged plays by Pirandello, LeRoi Jones, and other ambitious writers with new talents like Al Pacino and Jill Clayburgh.

[5] "She acted for half a century on stage, screen and film", said Mailer's official biographer J. Michael Lennon: "She was well-known in New York City.