Patricia Medina
Medina by Allan Warren in 1973
Born
Patricia Paz Maria Medina

(1919-07-19)19 July 1919
Liverpool, Lancashire, England
Died28 April 2012(2012-04-28) (aged 92)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting placeBlandford Cemetery, Petersburg, Virginia
NationalityBritish
Other namesPatricia Medina Cotten
OccupationActress
Years active1937–1978
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1941; div. 1951)​
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1960; died 1994)​
    Patricia Medina and Richard Boone in Have Gun - Will Travel (1959)

    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.[1] 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.[2]

    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.[1]

    Personal life

    Medina married British actor Richard Greene on 24 December 1941, in St. James's Church, Spanish Place, London; they divorced in 1951.[3] Medina married Joseph Cotten on 20 October 1960, in Beverly Hills at the home of David O. Selznick and Jennifer Jones.[4] Cotten and she bought a historic 1935 home in the Mesa neighborhood of Palm Springs, California, where they lived from 1985 to 1992.[5] 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.[6]

    She was interred at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia, beside the remains of her husband, Cotten.[7]

    Complete filmography

    Siren of Bagdad (1953) with Hans Conried and Paul Henreid

    Selected television roles

    References

    1. 1 2 Medina Cotton, Patricia (1998). Laid Back In Hollywood. Bell Publishing. ISBN 9780964963511.
    2. ↑ "Overview for Patricia Medina". Turner Classic Movies.
    3. ↑ "robinhood-tv.co.uk". www.robinhood-tv.co.uk. Archived from the original on 19 August 2008.
    4. ↑ "Patricia Medina Cotton: The Interview". Archived from the original on 14 December 2004.
    5. ↑ Meeks, Eric G. (2014) [2012]. The Best Guide Ever to Palm Springs Celebrity Homes. Horatio Limburger Oglethorpe. pp. 279–80, 2944. ISBN 978-1479328598.
    6. ↑ "Patricia Medina dies at 92; Briton was '50s Hollywood leading lady". L.A. Times. 2 May 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
    7. ↑ "Virginia highway marker to honor Joseph Cotten". Wellesnet, Orson Welles Web Resource. 13 April 2015. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
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