Beverly Marsh

Lore & Background

Beverly Marsh was born in 1947 (1976 in the 2017 version). She is the daughter of Alvin Marsh and Elinor Marsh. Her mother's presence in her life differs among the three continuities. Beverly is a classmate of Ben Hanscom, who harbors a secret crush on her.

Ben writes her an anonymous love poem which states, "Your hair is winter fire, January embers, my heart burns there, too." Beverly is led to believe that the poem was written by Bill Denbrough, who grows up to be a horror novelist. Beverly eventually joins "The Losers Club" and befriends Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon and Stanley Uris. Beverly has her first encounter with Pennywise in her bathroom when she hears voices coming from her sink; later, in the sewer, Pennywise speaks the phrase "We All Float Down Here".

A balloon-like construct begins growing from her sink and bursts, covering her bathroom with blood. Beverly's screams attract the attention of her father, who sees the blood but dismisses it. She confides in The Losers Club, who can all see the blood and help her clean the bathroom. The Losers Club eventually go into the sewers to find Beverly after she is taken.

After the group finds and finishes off the clown, they escape through a tunnel to the Barrens. After they escape the sewers, the Losers make a blood oath that if Pennywise hasn't been defeated, they will all return if it returns.

Reader's Guide

Beverly is portrayed in the 1990 TV miniseries by Emily Perkins as a child and Annette O'Toole as an adult. This interpretation remains fairly faithful to the novel. Perkins' portrayal of Beverly was met with a relatively positive reception, but O'Toole's portrayal was met with a more negative one. The portrayal of Beverly in the 2017 film and its 2019 sequel by Sophia Lillis as a child and Jessica Chastain as an adult were much more positively received.

This interpretation shows Beverly as being the moral compass of The Losers Club and playing a key role in defeating Pennywise in both films. In the novel, Beverly was born in 1947. However, in the TV mini-series she was born in 1948 and in 1976 in the film adaptions. Her mother Elfrida is present in the novel, but she is mostly too preoccupied with her job to be much of a parent to Beverly; however, she does have concerns about her husband Alvin abusing her daughter, and even asked Beverly one time if her father has ever "touched" her.

A flashback in the 2019 film reveals that her mother has died when Beverly was young; her death is implied to have been suicide due to mental illness, possibly postpartum depression. Alvin blames Beverly for her mother's death, and abuses her physically and sexually throughout her childhood. In It: Welcome to Derry, Beverly's mother commits suicide in October 1988 at the Juniper Hills Asylum. Ingrid Kersh, also a patient at the asylum, tells the grieving Beverly, played once again by Sophia Lillis, that no one really dies in Derry.

During production of the 2017 film, actress Chloë Grace Moretz was a frontrunner for the role of Beverly. However as the project remained in development hell, the actress eventually became too old to play the role of a child. Eventually, Moretz became attached to a different Stephen King adaptation in the role of Carrie White for the 2013 remake of Carrie.

Did You Know?

• Beverly was born in 1947 in the novel and 1976 in the film adaptations; the TV miniseries does not specify a birth year.
• Actress Chloë Grace Moretz was a frontrunner for the role of Beverly in the 2017 film but became too old during development hell; she later played Carrie White in the 2013 remake of Carrie.