Dorothy Patrick, (June 3, 1921 – May 31, 1987) was an American film actress and a John Robert Powers

John Robert Powers

John Robert Powers was an American actor and founder of a prominent New York City modeling agency.In 1923, John Robert Powers founded a modeling agency. The John Robert Powers Agency represented many models who went on to success in the Hollywood film industry, and even Betty Bloomer who became...

 model.

Early Life

Dorothy Patrick was born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, Canada of Scot-English heritage from a family of farmers, ranchers and Canadian National Railway workers. Thanks to a talented uncle who was a uniform-maker and tailor to W.W.I Canadian Army officers, she early-on became sensitive to fashion and taste. Having the poise and beauty older than her years, as a teen Dorothy was a photogenic model for young ladies' fashions in Creed's, Hudson's Bay and Sears department store catalogues popular in Canada.

After growing up in Winnipeg, in 1938 at age 17, she and her mother immigrated to the United States. Settling in New York City at tony Tudor City in Manhattan, Patrick became a fashion model with the famous John Robert Powers Agency. She was seen on the runways of the City's haute couture salons and as the wholesome face on popular fashion and entertainment magazines of the day.

Career

During her early career she was billed under her birth name, Dorothea Davis until she married New York Rangers hockey star, Lynn Patrick

Lynn Patrick

Joseph Lynn Patrick was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and executive. As a player, Patrick played for the New York Rangers in the National Hockey League. Lynn was an important member of one Stanley Cup title the Rangers won in 1940. After his playing career, he went on to be the general...

, and became Dorothy Patrick. Though she had one son, Lester Lee Patrick (1940–1996), in the marriage, the aspiring actress remained career-bound, not ready to co-star as a house-frau.

While appearing at dinner-club showcases in Jersey City, Patrick won Samuel Goldwyn

Samuel Goldwyn

Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...

's talent-search contest, MGM's coveted, "Gateway to Hollywood." With a movie contract in hand, she moved to Hollywood with her "back stage mother" and young son to live in Culver City and study and work at nearby MGM studios. She first appeared as a Goldwyn Girl

Goldwyn Girls

The Goldwyn Girls were a musical stock company of female dancers employed by Samuel Goldwyn. Famous actresses whose career included a stint in the Goldwyn Girls include Lucille Ball, Paulette Goddard, Betty Grable, Ann Sothern, Jane Wyman, Virginia Bruce, Virginia Grey, Mary Meade, and Virginia...

 in Danny Kaye

Danny Kaye

Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...

's movie Up in Arms

Up in Arms

Up in Arms is a 1944 film directed by Elliott Nugent. It stars Danny Kaye and Dinah Shore. It was nominated for two Academy Awards in 1945.-Cast:*Danny Kaye as Danny Weems*Dinah Shore as Nurse Lt. Virginia Merrill*Dana Andrews as Joe Nelson...

(1944). Her most noted MGM appearance was opposite Robert Walker

Robert Hudson Walker

Robert Hudson Walker was an American actor. He is probably best known for his role as Bruno Anthony in Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 thriller Strangers on a Train.-Early life:...

 in the Jerome Kern

Jerome Kern

Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...

 musical showcase and Technicolor dazzler, Till the Clouds Roll By

Till the Clouds Roll By

Till The Clouds Roll By is a 1946 American musical film made by MGM. The film is a fictionalized biography of composer Jerome Kern, who was originally involved with the production of the film, but died before it was completed...

(1946).

As a "Queen of the Bs," she continued to appear in films produced in the 1940s and 1950s including, High Wall

High Wall

High Wall is a film noir, starring Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter and Herbert Marshall. It was directed by Curtis Bernhardt from a screenplay by Sydney Boehm and Lester Cole, based on a play by Alan R...

(1947) with Robert Taylor

Robert Taylor (actor)

Robert Taylor was an American film and television actor.-Early life:Born Spangler Arlington Brugh in Filley, Nebraska, he was the son of Ruth Adaline and Spangler Andrew Brugh, who was a farmer turned doctor...

; New Orleans (1947) with Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

 and Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...

 (the only film-record of Holiday singing); The Mighty McGurk

The Mighty McGurk

The Mighty McGurk is a 1947 film starring Wallace Beery as a boozing ex-boxer working as a bouncer in a Bowery saloon. The movie was directed by John Waters, although not the same John Waters who directed Pink Flamingos and Hairspray .-Cast:*Wallace Beery as Slag McGurk*Dean Stockwell as...

(1947) with Wallace Beery

Wallace Beery

Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...

; Follow Me Quietly

Follow Me Quietly

Follow Me Quietly is a semidocumentary film noir directed by Richard Fleischer, with support from Anthony Mann in an uncredited position. The drama features William Lundigan, Dorothy Patrick, Jeff Corey, and others.-Plot:...

(1949) with William Lundingan; the Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang

Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...

-directed House by the River

House by the River

House by the River is a 1950 film directed by Fritz Lang. The Gothic crime story is considered film noir. The film was released by Republic Pictures.-Plot:...

(1950).

In the early days of Hollywood television, Patrick made guest appearances on the locally-produced show, Mike Stokey's Pantomime Quiz. The Korean War-era saw her at celebrity appearances for USO and was Miss Naval Air Force Recruiting 1951. At Columbia, Patrick co-starred with Preston Foster

Preston Foster

Preston Foster was an American stage and film actor, and singer. Foster entered films in 1929 after appearing as a Broadway stage actor. He was appearing in Broadway plays as late as October 1931 when he acted in a play titled Two Seconds starring Edward J. Pawley...

 and Wayne Morris in the oil wild-catting yarn, The Big Gusher (1951); in the modern-day western, Outlaw Stallion (1954) opposite Billy Gray

Billy Gray

William Patrick "Billy" Gray was an English professional association footballer and manager who played initially as a winger....

 with Phil (Philip) Carey. She co-starred or was supporting actress in a series of Republic programmers. The studio was best known releasing Saturday Matinee serials, westerns, mysteries and crime dramas. Her films included the noir classic, 711 Ocean Drive

711 Ocean Drive

711 Ocean Drive is an American crime film noir directed by Joseph M. Newman. The drama features Edmond O'Brien, Joanne Dru and Otto Kruger.-Plot:...

(1950) with Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...

, Joanne Dru

Joanne Dru

Joanne Dru was an American film and television actress, known for such films as Red River and All the King's Men.-Career:...

 and Otto Kruger

Otto Kruger

Otto Kruger was an American actor who began his career in 1915. His career was most prolific during the 1930s and 1940s.-Career:...

 (caps with a slam-bang gun-chase scene at Hoover [Boulder] Dam); the "true life" crime drama, Lonely Hearts Bandits (1950) with John Eldredge; genre westerns, Thunder Pass (1954) with Dane Clark

Dane Clark

Dane Clark was an American film actor who was known for playing, as he labeled himself, "Joe Average".-Early life:...

, John Carradine

John Carradine

John Carradine was an American actor, best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns as well as Shakespearean theater. A member of Cecil B DeMille's stock company and later John Ford's company, he was one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history...

 and Andy Devine

Andy Devine

Andrew Vabre "Andy" Devine was an American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick known for his distinctive raspy voice.-Early life:...

; "Gringos go south-of-the-border" comedy, Belle of Old Mexico (1950) with Latina comedienne, Estelita Rodriguez

Estelita Rodriguez

Estelita Rodriguez was a Cuban actress best known for her roles in many Roy Rogers Republic westerns, and her role in Howard Hawks' western classic Rio Bravo.- Early Life and Career :Estelita M. Rodriguez was born in Cuba on July 2, 1928...

, and Robert Rockwell

Robert Rockwell

Robert Rockwell was an American actor best known for playing the handsome, but awkward biology teacher Philip Boynton in the radio and television situation comedy Our Miss Brooks opposite Eve Arden....

, Florence Bates

Florence Bates

Florence Bates was an American character actress who often played grande dame characters in her films.Born Florence Rabe in San Antonio, Texas, the second child of Jewish immigrants, Bates showed musical talent as a child, but a hand injury inhibited her from continuing her piano studies...

.

Patrick's roles in the 1950s also included walk-ons in The Bad and the Beautiful

The Bad and the Beautiful

The Bad and the Beautiful is a 1952 MGM melodramatic film that tells the story of a film producer who alienates all around him. It was directed by Vincente Minelli and stars Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame and Gilbert Roland. The film was...

(1952) and Singin' in the sRain (1952). She continued playing small, supporting roles on summer-stock stage, screen and TV until 1956. Her last movies, at 20th Century Fox, were Violent Saturday

Violent Saturday

Violent Saturday is a 1955 American crime drama directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Victor Mature, Lee Marvin, Richard Egan and Stephen McNally. The film, set in a mining town, depicts the planning of a bank robbery as the nexus in the personal lives of several townspeople.Prominent actors...

as the wife of Victor Mature

Victor Mature

Victor John Mature was an American stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky to an Italian-speaking father from the town Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol , Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, a cutler,...

 (1955) and View from Pompey's Head (1955) with Richard Egan

Richard Egan

Richard Egan may refer to:*Richard Egan , American film actor*Richard Egan , American businessman, co-founder of EMC Corporation, one-time Ambassador to Ireland*Richard Egan , American ragtime composer and performer...

 and Dana Wynter

Dana Wynter

Dana Wynter was a German-born British actress, who was brought up in England and Southern Africa. She appeared in film and television for more than forty years beginning in the 1950s, most notably in the original version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.-Early life:Wynter was born as Dagmar...

. A working SAG (Screen Actors Guild) actress, Dorothy appeared in 35 films. She made a quiet return to the stage in the late 1960s acting in productions at the Leonivitch Theatre in West Hollywood. Dorothy Patrick is interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, West Los Angeles, California.

Personal Life

Dorothy's first husband, Lynn Patrick

Lynn Patrick

Joseph Lynn Patrick was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and executive. As a player, Patrick played for the New York Rangers in the National Hockey League. Lynn was an important member of one Stanley Cup title the Rangers won in 1940. After his playing career, he went on to be the general...

 became one of the most prominent and successful figures in American ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

. Her second husband was the noted Beverly Hills dentist-to-the-stars, Sterling Trevling "Doc" Bowen who "Put the smile on half of Hollywood." Her son from that marriage is Terrence "Terry" (b.1944). She had two children, one from each marriage.

External links