Gail Patrick

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Gail Patrick (born June 20, 1911 in Birmingham , Alabama , † July 6, 1980 in Los Angeles , California ; actually Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick ) was an American film actress and television producer. Above all, she was committed to portraying elegant but unsympathetic women.

Life

Patrick was born Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick. After graduating from Howard College with a bachelor's degree, she studied law at the University of Alabama . During this time she spontaneously entered a nationwide competition for a role in a Paramount film. She made it to the finals but didn't get the role. Still, she felt encouraged to go to Hollywood , where she was signed to Paramount for $ 50 a week in 1932.

She had her first screen appearance as an extra in the film If I Had a Million (1932), in which Gary Cooper played the lead role. Other insignificant roles followed, but these became increasingly larger. Between 1932 and 1948, Patrick appeared in more than 60 films, in which she played mostly hypothermic ice princesses or the calculating rival of the leading actress. Her best-known appearances include the spoiled sister of Carole Lombard in the comedy classic Mein Mann Godfrey (1936) and My Favorite Woman (1940), in which she vies with Irene Dunne for the affection of Cary Grant . In Stage Entrance (1937), her character argued with Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers . With Rogers she was also seen in the star-studded episode film Six Fates (1942) by Julien Duvivier , under whose direction Charles Boyer , Rita Hayworth , Henry Fonda , Charles Laughton and Edward G. Robinson were also used.

In 1948 Patrick abruptly ended her acting career to work as a designer of clothes, which she was very successful in the 1950s. She later produced the US television series Perry Mason (1957-1966) together with her third husband Cornwell Jackson . Patrick was one of the first female producers in Hollywood. She also served at times as Vice President of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Patrick was married a total of four times. Her first husband was Robert Howard Cobb, who owned the famous Hollywood restaurant Brown Derby and who invented the Cobb Salad named after him . The marriage lasted only four years from 1936 to 1940. Her second marriage to Arnold Dean White lasted only one year (1944-1945). She adopted two children with Cornwell Jackson, whom she married in 1947. But this relationship also broke up - the divorce took place in 1969. Patrick was married to John E. Velde Jr. for the last six years of her life. She suffered from diabetes throughout her life and died of leukemia in 1980 at the age of 69 .

Filmography (selection)

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Commons : Gail Patrick  - Collection of Images
personal data
SURNAME Patrick, Gail
ALTERNATIVE NAMES LaVelle Fitzpatrick, Margaret
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Birmingham , Alabama , United States
DATE OF DEATH July 6, 1980
Place of death Los Angeles , California , United States