Pat Paterson

For other people with a similar name, see Pat Patterson (disambiguation).

Patricia Paterson
Born	Eliza Paterson 7 April 1910(1910-04-07) Bradford
Died	24 August 1978(1978-08-24) (aged 68) Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.
Years active	1931–1939
Spouse	Charles Boyer (1934–1978)

Pat Paterson (7 April 1910 – 24 August 1978) was an Anglo-Scottish film actress, born in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Though she made over 20 films, she is most famous for being the wife of French-born actor Charles Boyer and for the death of their only child, Michael, at his own 20th birthday party.

Childhood and early life

She was born Eliza Paterson on 7 April 1910 at No.74 Fitzgerald Street, Horton, a suburb of Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire. Her mother, Hannah Holroyd (b. 4 February 1888, Bradford) was English, her father, John Robb Paterson, (b.1888, Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland) was a Scot. Eliza was the second of three children.

From infancy, Eliza was called Cis (to rhyme with kiss) or Cissie, a traditional English nickname given to girls named Elizabeth or some variant thereof (Eliza, Elspeth, etc.). By the time she was twelve years old she had built up a portfolio of child-acting and modeling work in the local area.

Early Hollywood career

In 1928, although aged only 18 (the legal age of adulthood in the UK at that time was 21) she persuaded her parents to allow her to leave for Hollywood. She arrived in 1929 and was signed by Fox Studios as a contract player and immediately began to obtain film roles. She was renamed Patricia (almost immediately shortened to Pat) Paterson, as the Pat-Paterson sound had an ear-catching alliterative rhythm. From 1930 to 1934 she appeared in many studio pictures, in roles of increasing prominence. In the 1935 20th Century Fox film Charlie Chan Goes To Egypt, starring Warner Oland as Chan, she played the female lead, Carol Arnold. This was intended by the studio to serve as her break-out role for leading parts. In early 1934, as production on Charlie Chan Goes To Egypt was wrapping, Maurice Chevalier persuaded his lifelong best friend, fellow French actor Charles Boyer, to attend a Fox Studios post-New Year dinner party at which Pat Paterson was a guest. In interviews over the years, Boyer declared their meeting to have been a case of love at first sight. They married within four weeks of the party, on St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 1934, in Yuma, Arizona.

Later Hollywood career

Boyer was quoted in the American news media as claiming his wife would be relinquishing her career, as he felt married women should not work but devote their time and attention to bringing up their children. However, Paterson continued to work. Indeed, arguably her greatest commercial successes came in the five years immediately following her marriage to Boyer. She continued to appear in at least one film per year until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, when she, her husband and Maurice Chevalier, as Europeans, devoted themselves to supporting the war effort of Britain and France. It was the war which effectively brought an end to her film career. On 10 December 1944, two years after her husband Charles became an American citizen, she gave birth to their only child, Michael Charles Boyer, in Los Angeles, California.

Son's death

On the night of 10 December 1964, at his own 20th birthday party in his Los Angeles home, Michael Boyer shot himself dead while playing Russian Roulette with a group of male friends near the mansion's summerhouse. The media reported his death as a deliberate suicide, citing distress over his breakup with his girlfriend as the motivation. However, family and friends noted that the pair had indeed separated but had since reconciled. Police reported that inebriation was a prominent factor in party, that there were no reliable witnesses to either the actual incident or Michael Boyer's alleged state of mind in the hours prior to his death, and that Michael's death might have been simply a drunken accident. Charles Boyer was filming in Europe at the time. Neither he nor Paterson ever recovered from their son's death.

=Death

Diagnosed with a brain tumour, Eliza 'Pat' Paterson died in Hollywood on 24 August 1978. Charles Boyer committed suicide two days later, by overdose. They are buried together alongside their son in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Filmography

• The Other Woman (1931)
• The Great Gay Road (1931)
• The Right to Live (1932)
• Partners Please (1932)
• Lord Babs (1932)
• Here's George (1932)
• The Medicine Man (1933)
• The Love Wager (1933)
• The Laughter of Fools (1933)
• Head of the Family (1933)
• Beware of Women (1933)
• Bitter Sweet (1933)
• Bottoms Up (1934)
• Call It Luck (1934)
• Love Time (1934)
• The Lottery Lover (1935)
• Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935)
• Spendthrift (1936)
• 52nd Street (1937)
• Idiot's Delight (1939)

Short subject

• Hollywood Goes to Town (1938) (uncredited)

References

• Frank Arnau (1932). Universal Filmlexikon 1932. Berlin/London: Universal Filmlexikon GmbH/London General Press. 

External links

• Pat Paterson at the Internet Movie Database
• Pat Paterson at AllRovi
• Pat Paterson at Find a Grave
• Photographs of Pat Paterson