Patricia Medina

Patricia Medina
Patricia Paz Maria Medina (19 July 1919 – 28 April 2012) was a British actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the films Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954) and Mr. Arkadin (1955).
Early life
Medina was the daughter of Laureano Ramón Medina Nebot, a Spanish lawyer and opera singer from the Canary Islands, and an English mother, Edith May Strode. Patricia had two sisters, Piti (Pepita) and Gloria. Born in Liverpool, her sisters and she grew up at a mansion in Stanmore. Medina began acting as a teenager in the late 1930s, and worked her way up to leading roles in the mid-1940s, when she left London for Hollywood.
Career
In 1950's Fortunes of Captain Blood, she teamed with British actor Louis Hayward. They subsequently appeared together in 1951's The Lady and the Bandit, Lady in the Iron Mask, and Captain Pirate from 1952.
Darkly beautiful, Medina was often typecast in period melodramas such as The Black Knight. Two of her more notable films were William Witney's Stranger at My Door and Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin, based on episodes of the radio series The Adventures of Harry Lime, itself derived from The Third Man film.
Although prolific during the early 1950s, her film career faded by the end of the decade. In 1958, she performed in four episodes as Margarita Cortazar on Walt Disney's ABC series, Zorro. In 1958, she also appeared as "The Lady" Diana Coulter in Richard Boone's CBS Western series, Have Gun, Will Travel. She was then cast in an episode of Darren McGavin's NBC Western series, Riverboat. In 1960, she was cast as different characters in two episodes ("Fair Game" and "The Earl of Durango") of the ABC Western series, The Rebel. Medina also made television appearances on Perry Mason ("The Case of the Lucky Loser", 27 September 1958); Bonanza ("The Spanish Grant", 6 February 1960), Thriller ("The Premature Burial", 1961), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ("See the Monkey Dance", 9 November 1964) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E ("The Foxes and Hounds Affair", 8 October 1965).
Medina guest starred as Ruthanne Harper in "Incident of the Boomerang" in 1961 and Ilona Calvin in "Incident at Jacob's Well" in 1959, on Rawhide. She guest-starred in the Branded episode "Yellow for Courage" in 1966 and the Burke's Law (Gene Barry as Amos Burke) TV episode "Don Pablo" in 1964.
In 1968, she returned to the big screen in The Killing of Sister George, Robert Aldrich's adaptation of the lesbian-themed drama of the same name.
Medina and her husband, American actor Joseph Cotten, toured together in several plays and on Broadway in the murder mystery Calculated Risk.
Autobiography
In 1998, she published an autobiography, Laid Back in Hollywood.
Personal life
Medina married British actor Richard Greene on 24 December 1941, in St. James's Church, Spanish Place, London; they divorced in 1951. Medina married Joseph Cotten on 20 October 1960, in Beverly Hills at the home of David O. Selznick and Jennifer Jones. Cotten and she bought a historic 1935 home in the Mesa neighborhood of Palm Springs, California, where they lived from 1985 to 1992. No children were born from either marriage.
Death
Medina died at age 92 on 28 April 2012, from natural causes at the Barlow Respiratory Hospital in Los Angeles, California.
She was interred at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia, beside the remains of her husband, Cotten.
Complete filmography
Dinner at the Ritz (1937) – (uncredited)
Mr. Satan (1938) – A Girl
Simply Terrific (1938) – Heather Carfax
Double or Quits (1938) – Caroline
This Man Is News (1938) – Waitress in teashop (uncredited)
Crook's Tour (1941) – Hotel Receptionist (uncredited)
The Day Will Dawn (1942) – Ingrid
The First of the Few (1942) – Venetian Girl (uncredited)
They Met in the Dark (1943) – Mary – Manicurist
Hotel Reserve (1944) – Odette Roux
Don't Take It to Heart (1944) – Mary
Kiss the Bride Goodbye (1945) – Joan Dodd
Waltz Time (1945) – Cenci Prohaska
The Secret Heart (1946) – Kay Burns; first American role
The Beginning or the End (1947) – Mrs. Wyatt (uncredited)
Moss Rose (1947) – Audrey Ashton
The Foxes of Harrow (1947) – Desiree
The Three Musketeers (1948) – Kitty
The Fighting O'Flynn (1949, opposite then husband, Richard Greene) – Fancy Free
Children of Chance (1949) – Agostina
Francis (1950) – Maureen Gelder
Fortunes of Captain Blood (1950) – Isabelita Sotomayor
Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950) – Nicole Dupre
The Jackpot (1950) – Hildegarde Jonet / Hilda Jones
Valentino (1951) – Lila Reyes
The Lady and the Bandit (1951) – Joyce Greene
The Magic Carpet (1951) – Lida
Aladdin and His Lamp (1952) – Princess Jasmine
Lady in the Iron Mask (1952) – Princess Anne / Princess Louise
Captain Pirate (1952) – Dona Isabella
Desperate Search (1952) – Nora Stead
Botany Bay (1952) – Sally Munroe
Siren of Bagdad (1953) – Princess Zendi
Sangaree (1953) – Martha Darby
Plunder of the Sun (1953) – Anna Luz
Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954) – Jeanette
Drums of Tahiti (1954) – Wanda Spence
The Black Knight (1954) – Linet
Pirates of Tripoli (1955) – Princess Karjan
Mr. Arkadin (1955) – Mily
Duel on the Mississippi (1955) – Lili Scarlet
The Red Cloak (1955) – Laura Lanfranchi
Uranium Boom (1956) – Jean Williams
Stranger at My Door (1956) – Peg Jarret
The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956) – Sarita
Miami Exposé (1956) – Lila Hodges
The Buckskin Lady (1957) – Angela Medley
Battle of the V-1 (1958) – Zofia
Count Your Blessings (1959) – Albertine
Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961) – Queen / Witch / Gypsy Matilda
The Killing of Sister George (1968) – Betty Thaxter
Latitude Zero (1969) – Lucretia
Keene (1969)
Timber Tramps (1975) – Miami Lills
El llanto de los pobres (1978) – (final film role)
Selected television roles
Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers (1956)
Zorro (1957)
The Californians in episode "Lola Montez" (NBC-TV, 1958) – Lola Montez
Perry Mason (1957 TV series) in “The Case of the Lucky Loser” (1958) – Harriet Balfour
Rawhide (CBS-TV, 1960)
Bonanza (1960) – Isabella Maria Ynez Y Castro De La Cuesta / Rosita Morales in the episode The Spanish Grant
The Rebel (TV series) in episode "Fair Game" (1960) - Cynthia
Thriller (NBC-TV, 1961; 2 episodes) – Victorine Lafourcade / Nadja
Have Gun – Will Travel (1957–1963) – Diana Coulter / Sabina – Unforgiving Minute /
Rawhide (1961) – Ruthanne Harper in S3:E20, "Incident of the Boomerang"
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1964) – Wife
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1965) – Lucia Belmont
Branded'' (NBC-TV, 1966) – Dr. Karen L. Miller
References
External links
Photograph
1919 births
2012 deaths
Actresses from Liverpool
Actresses from Los Angeles
Actresses from Palm Springs, California
British expatriate actresses in the United States
British film actresses
British stage actresses
British television actresses
British people of Spanish descent
Burials at Blandford Cemetery
English people of Canarian descent
20th-century English actresses
21st-century American women