A History Of Liverpool Thespians - Patricia Medina

 

 

Patricia Paz Maria Medina was born on the 19th of July, 1919 in West Derby, Liverpool, the daughter of Laureano Ramón Medina Nebot, a Spanish lawyer and opera singer from the Canary Islands, and an English mother, Edith May Strode. This wealthy Spanish businessman had met a local lady from a Methodist family, but, suspicious of his motives, her parents had him checked out by the Spanish embassy. Patricia had two sisters, Piti (Pepita) and Gloria, also born in Liverpool. In her memoir, 'Laid Back' she tells all about her childhood with loving parents and an amazingly close relationship to her sisters. In her late teens, Patricia was tested at Elstree studios. "I was awful," she recalled. "The fact is I couldn't act. I can't believe they liked me. But one producer said it was because I was beautiful." She made 10 films in Britain from 1937 to 1945, including 'The First of the Few' (1942), 'They Met in the Dark' (1943) with James Mason, and a haunted house comedy, 'Don't Take It to Heart' (1944), opposite her first husband, Richard Greene, who she married in 1941. It was around this period that she was given the title "the most beautiful face in the whole of England". In 1945 she moved to Los Angeles with Richard Greene, who had already made a career there. Her first Hollywood picture was the psychological melodrama 'The Secret Heart' (1946), though she was barely noticed down a cast list headed by Claudette Colbert, Walter Pidgeon and June Allyson. She went on to play sultry loose women in two period pieces, 'The Foxes of Harrow (1947) and 'The Fighting O'Flynn' (1949), the latter with her husband. However after nine years they divorced on the 25th of June 1951, after which she lived alone in Hollywood, terminating her MGM contract and moving to Columbia.

In Botany Bay (1953) with co-star Alan Ladd.

After playing stooge to a talking mule in 'Francis' (1950) and to Abbott and Costello in the 'Foreign Legion' (1950), she embarked on her swashbuckler's lady period when she teamed up with British actor Louis Hayward as they appeared together in 'Fortunes of Captain Blood' (1950), 'The Lady and the Bandit' (1951), 'Lady in the Iron Mask' (1952) and 'Captain Pirate' (1952). There were also the Arabian Nights fantasies such as 'The Magic Carpet' (1951), 'Aladdin and His Lamp' (1952), and 'Siren of Bagdad' (1953), with Patricia's beautiful dark eyes flashing behind veils. Voluptuous and exotic-looking, she was often typecast in period melodramas such as 'The Black Knight' (1954) and with a cut-glass English accent, this often prevented her from playing English characters. She was the feminine interest in Botany Bay (1953), starring Alan Ladd and James Mason, and 'Sangaree' (1953), conveniently dying as Arlene Dahl's rival for Fernando Lamas, and as the beautiful obsession of Karl Malden's biologist/misogynist in 'Phantom of the Rue Morgue' (1954). Two of her more notable films were William Witney's 'Stranger At My Door' (1956) and Orson Welles's 'Confidential Report' (1955), a follow-up of 'The Third Man' (1949), based on the radio series, 'The Lives of Harry Lime'. In this film she used the one chance she had to work with a director of magnitude, Orson Welles, to show what she was capable of. As Mily, in this breathless, globetrotting film, she is an earthy nightclub dancer who attempts to seduce the amnesiac billionaire Welles. It was through Welles that Patricia met her second husband, Joseph Cotten, to whom she was married for 34 years until his death in 1994. Despite continuing to appear in hokum such as 'Drums of Tahiti' (1954), 'Pirates of Tripoli' (1955), 'Duel on the Mississippi' (1955) and 'The Beast of Hollow Mountain' (1956), the now divorced Patricia, was having "one hell of a time", as she put it.

With Clint Eastwood in 'Rawhide' (1959)

Although prolific during the early 1950s, appearing in more than 50 feature films, her film career faded away by the end of the decade, leading to stage and television roles. On television, she appeared as Margarita Cortazar in four episodes of Walt Disney's 'Zorro' and in horse operas such as 'Rawhide', 'Bonanza' and Richard Boone's 'Have Gun Will Travel', usually as a Mexican. On visits to London she regularly appeared on BBC television as a panellist on 'What’s My Line?' (1951-63) with personalities including Gilbert Harding and Barbara Kelly. She married Joseph Cotten on the 20th of October 1960 at the Home of David O. Selznick and Jennifer Jones in Beverley Hills, Hollywood. Shortly after their marriage, the couple embarked on the first of several theatre tours of the United States. She made her Broadway debut opposite her husband in 'Calculated Risk', a murder mystery whodunit that ran for six months. Her only significant film thereafter was in Robert Aldrich's adaptation of 'The Killing of Sister George (1968), in which she played a prostitute.Patricia retired from acting in 1978 after 40 years in the motion picture industry. United Press International Hollywood reporter Vernon Scott wrote in 2000, "They were “blissfully devoted to one another. Medina and Cotten were a curious pair, she was a vivacious extrovert and Cotton was a gentlemanly Virginian, a quiet, considerate man. At myriad parties and industry events they were inseparable, among the most popular couples in town. They represented stability in this socially unstable community." After Joseph Cotten's career was terminated in 1981 by ill health, she devoted herself to caring for him until his death in 1994. It was in 1998 that she published her autobiography 'Laid Back'. She died at age 92 of natural causes on the 28th of April 2012 in Los Angeles, California and was interred at Blandford Cemetary in Petersburg, Virginia, alongside her husband Joseph Cotten.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/07/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-peter.html