Patricia Medina

Patricia Paz Maria Medina (19 July 1919 – 28 April 2012) was an English-American 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 Ramón Medina Nebot, a Spanish lawyer and opera singer from the Canary Islands, and an English mother. Patricia had two sisters, Piti (Pepita) and Gloria. Born in Liverpool, she and her sisters 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. She and Hayward 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 away 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. also appeared in The Amos burke (Gene Barry) TV episode Don Pablo 1967.

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

Medina married British actor Richard Greene, 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. 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. Her remains are buried at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia, beside the remains of Joseph Cotten.

Complete filmography

Selected television roles

• Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers (1956)
• The Californians in episode "Lola Montez" (NBC-TV, 1958) - Lola Montez
• Perry Mason in “The Case of the Lucky Loser” (1958) - Harriet Belfour
• Rawhide (CBS-TV, 1960)
• Bonanza (1960) - Isabella Maria Ynez Y Castra De La Cuesta / Rosita Morales in the episode The Spanish Grant
• Thriller (NBC-TV, 1961; 2 episodes) - Victorine Lafourcade / Nadja
• Have Gun - Will Travel (1957-1963) - Diana Coulter / Sabina - Greedy Wife
• 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