Patricia Medina

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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)​
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

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

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.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed][7]

Complete filmography

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

Selected television roles

References

  1. ^
    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. 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.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Patricia Medina.
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