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Patricia Owens

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For the former mayor of Grand Forks, North Dakota, see Pat Owens
Patricia Owens
Owens in 1958
Born(1925-01-17)January 17, 1925
Golden, British Columbia, Canada
DiedAugust 31, 2000(2000-08-31) (aged 75)
Lancaster, California, U.S.
OccupationActress
Years active1943–1968
Spouse(s)Sy Bartlett (1956–1958)
Jerome Nathanson (1960–1961) 1 child
John Austin (1969–1975)
ChildrenAdam Nathanson (b. 1961)[1]

Patricia Molly Owens (January 17, 1925 – August 31, 2000) was a Canadian-born American actress, working in Hollywood.[2] She appeared in about 40 films and 10 TV episodes in a career lasting from 1943 to 1968.

Owens moved to England in 1933 with her parents (her father Arthur Owens was later to become an MI5 double agent),[3] and ten years later, at age 18, she made her motion-picture debut in Val Guest's musical comedy Miss London Ltd. The following year, she had a small role in Harold French's social satire English Without Tears. Her career continued in this manner for a few years, Owens getting ever-larger roles in movies.

Her career took a great step upward when she was seen by a 20th Century Fox executive while performing in a theatrical production of Sabrina Fair and was offered a screen test. The result was a contract with the studio and a move to Hollywood. Her first American film was Island in the Sun (1957), soon followed by No Down Payment, both for Fox, after which Owens was loaned out to Warner Bros. to play opposite Marlon Brando in the drama Sayonara (1957), one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year.

Owens spent the rest of 1957 working mostly on loan-out, but it was a Fox production that secured her place in motion picture history—as Helene Delambre, the wife of scientist Andre Delambre in The Fly (1958), co-starring with David Hedison and Vincent Price. Owens carried much of the film's narrative, which was largely told in flashback from her character's point of view.

She never had another movie that was of the calibre of The Fly. She co-starred with Jeffrey Hunter and David Janssen in a 1960 war film, Hell to Eternity, then in 1961 was reduced to working in the threadbare, backlot POW/jungle chase drama Seven Women from Hell. Owens made occasional television appearances, on series such as Perry Mason and Burke's Law, but these were relatively infrequent. Owens also starred in one of the 17 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents directed by Hitchcock himself, "The Crystal Trench" (1959).

By 1965, she was working in Black Spurs, one of producer A.C. Lyles' B-Westerns, renowned for their use of aging genre stars. Owens retired from movies after portraying Richard Egan's love interest in the low-budget espionage thriller The Destructors (1968). Her last professional appearance was in an episode of Lassie (1968).[4]

She was the third wife of screenwriter and producer Sy Bartlett.

Filmography

References

  1. ^ http://www.glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com/show/393/Patricia+Owens/index.html
  2. ^ Born: 1925, VancouverDied: November 2000, Lancaster, Calif. "Patricia Owens | BFI | BFI". Explore.bfi.org.uk. Retrieved 2014-05-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ Shaw, Ceri (2011-12-10). "AmeriCymru: Welsh Double Agent Arthur Owens - An Interview With Madoc Roberts, Author of 'Snow'". Americymru.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2014-05-12.
  4. ^ "Patricia Owens Biography". Fandango. 1925-01-17. Retrieved 2014-05-12.
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