Patricia Owens (actress)
Encyclopedia
- For the former mayor of Grand Forks, North Dakota, see Pat OwensPat OwensPatrica A. Owens was the mayor of Grand Forks, North Dakota during the flood that devastated the city in April 1997...
Patricia Molly Owens (17 January 1925, Golden, British Columbia
Golden, British Columbia
Golden is a town in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, located west of Calgary, Alberta and east of Vancouver.-History:Much of the town's history is tied into the Canadian Pacific Railway and the logging industry...
- 31 August 2000, Lancaster, California
Lancaster, California
Lancaster is a charter city in northern Los Angeles County, in the high desert, near the Kern County line. Lancaster currently ranks as the 30th largest city in California, and the 148th largest city in the United States. Lancaster is the principal city within the Antelope Valley...
) was a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
-born American actress, working in Hollywood. She appeared in about 40 films and 10 TV episodes in a career lasting from 1943 to 1968.
Canadian-born actress Patricia Owens moved to England with her parents in 1933, and ten years later, at age 18, she made her motion-picture debut in Val Guest's musical comedy Miss London Ltd. The following year, she had a small role in Harold French's social satire English Without Tears. Her career continued in this manner for the next few years, Owens getting ever-larger roles in generally better movies (though not always—the same year in which she worked in the Launder-Gilliat production of The Happiest Days of Your Life
The Happiest Days of Your Life
The Happiest Days of Your Life is a 1950 British comedy film directed by Frank Launder, based on the play by John Dighton. The two men also wrote the screenplay. It's one of a stable of classic British film comedies produced by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat for British Lion Film Corporation. The...
, one of the funniest movies ever made in England, she also appeared in the abysmal Old Mother Riley, Headmistress).
Her career took a giant step upward when she was seen by a 20th Century Fox executive while performing in a theatrical production of Sabrina Fair
Sabrina Fair
Sabrina Fair is a romantic comedy written by Samuel A. Taylor. It ran on Broadway for a total of 318 performances, opening at the National Theatre on November 11, 1953. Directed by H. C...
and was offered a screen test. The result was a contract with the studio and a move to Hollywood. Her first American film was Island in the Sun
Island in the Sun (film)
Island in the Sun is a 1957 film that stars an ensemble cast including James Mason, Joan Fontaine, Dorothy Dandridge, Joan Collins, Michael Rennie and Harry Belafonte. The cast includes also Diana Wynyard, Patricia Owens and Stephen Boyd. The film is about race relations and interracial romance...
(1957) for Fox, and then Owens was loaned out to Warner Bros. to play opposite Marlon Brando in the drama Sayonara
Sayonara
Sayonara is a 1957 color American film starring Marlon Brando. It tells the story of an American Air Force flier who was an "ace" fighter pilot during the Korean War....
(1957), one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year. Owens spent the rest of 1957 working mostly on loan-out, but it was a 1958 Fox production that secured her place in motion picture history—as Helene Delambre, the wife of scientist Andre Delambre in The Fly
The Fly (1958 film)
The Fly is a 1958 American science-fiction horror film, directed by Kurt Neumann. The screenplay was written by James Clavell , from the short story "The Fly" by George Langelaan...
(1958), co-starring with David Hedison
David Hedison
Albert David Hedison, Jr. is an Armenian-American film, television, and stage actor. He was billed as Al Hedison in his early film work. In 1959, when he was cast in the role of Victor Sebastian in the short-lived espionage television series Five Fingers, NBC insisted that he change his name...
and Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
. Owens carried much of the film's story and drama, which were told in flashback from her character's point-of-view. The Fly was one of the most successful science fiction movies of the decade; the image of Owens unmasking her stricken husband and screaming at what she sees—and the shot of her horrified visage seen in a "fly's eye" view—became one of the defining moments in the genre.
Unfortunately for Owens, she never got another movie half as good as The Fly, from Fox or anyone else, and in 1961 was reduced to working in the threadbare, backlot POW/jungle chase drama Seven Women from Hell
Seven Women from Hell
Seven Women From Hell is a 1961 war drama starring Patricia Owens, Denise Darcel and Cesar Romero about women prisoners in a Japanese World War II prison camp, interned with other prisoners.-Plot:...
. Owens made occasional television appearances, on series such as Perry Mason
Perry Mason (TV series)
Perry Mason is an American legal drama produced by Paisano Productions that ran from September 1957 to May 1966 on CBS. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a fictional Los Angeles defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner...
and Burke's Law
Burke's Law
Burke's Law is a detective series that ran on ABC from 1963 to 1965 and was revived on CBS in the 1990s. The show starred Gene Barry as Amos Burke, millionaire captain of Los Angeles police homicide division, who was chauffeured around to solve crimes in his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud...
, but these were relatively infrequent. Owens also starred in one of the 17 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
directed by Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
himself, "The Crystal Trench" (1959). By 1965, she was working in Black Spurs, one of producer A.C. Lyles' B-Westerns, renowned for their use of aging genre stars, and Owens retired from movies after portraying Richard Egan's love interest in the low-budget espionage thriller The Destructors (1968). Her last professional appearance was in a 1968 episode of Lassie
Lassie (1954 TV series)
Lassie is an American television series that follows the adventures of a female Rough Collie named Lassie and her companions, human and animal. The show was the creation of producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax and was televised from September 12, 1954, to March 24, 1973...
.
She was the third wife of screenwriter and producer Sy Bartlett
Sy Bartlett
Sy Bartlett was an American author and screenwriter/producer of Hollywood films. Born Sacha Baraniev in Ukraine, he immigrated to the United States at the age of four and adopted the name Sidney Bartlett....
.