Gail Patrick
Gail Patrick
1942 studio publicity photograph
Born Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick
June 20, 1911
Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Died July 6, 1980 (aged 69)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other names Gail Patrick Jackson
Gail Patrick Velde
Alma mater Howard College
Occupation(s) Actress, producer
Years active 1932–1973
Spouses
Robert Howard Cobb
(m. 1936; div. 1941)
Arnold Dean White
(m. 1944; div. 1946)
Thomas Cornwell Jackson
(m. 1947; div. 1969)
John E. Velde Jr.
(m. 1974)
Children 2
Gail Patrick (born Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick; June 20, 1911 – July 6, 1980) was an American film
actress and television producer. Often cast as the bad girl or the other woman, she appeared in more
than 60 feature films between 1932 and 1948, notably My Man Godfrey (1936), Stage Door (1937),
and My Favorite Wife (1940).
After retiring from acting, she became, as Gail Patrick Jackson, president of Paisano Productions and
executive producer of the Perry Mason television series (1957–1966). She was one of the first female
producers, and the only female executive producer in prime time during the nine years Perry Mason was
on the air. She served two terms (1960–1962) as vice president of the National Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences and as president of its Hollywood chapter—the first woman to serve in a leadership
capacity in the academy, and its only female leader until 1983.
Career
[edit]
Gail Patrick was born Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick on June 20, 1911, in Birmingham, Alabama.[1]: 286 After
graduating from Howard College, she remained as acting dean of women.[2] She completed two years of
law school at the University of Alabama[3] and aspired to be the state's governor.[4] In 1932, "for a lark",
she entered a Paramount Pictures beauty and talent contest, and won train fare to Hollywood for herself
and her brother. Although she did not win the contest (for "Miss Panther Woman" in Island of Lost
Souls starring Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi, 1932), Patrick was offered a standard contract.[1]: 286
She visited the studio officials by herself and asked to negotiate. She said that she must have $75 a week
instead of the customary $50 and that she would not accept the standard 12-week layoff provision. "I
also read the fine print and blacked out the clause saying I had to do cheesecake stills", Patrick recalled
in a 1979 interview. "In the back of my mind I had this idea I could never go home to practice law if such
stills were floating around".[1]: 286
Her physical attractiveness helped her win top billing occasionally, as in King of Alcatraz (1938)
and Disbarred (1939), both directed by Robert Florey—but she most often played romantic rivals.[2] She
appeared in more than 60 movies between 1932 and 1948. Some of these roles include Carole
Lombard's spoiled sister in My Man Godfrey (1936), Ginger Rogers's rival in Stage Door (1937), and Anna
May Wong's competitor in Dangerous to Know (1938). Patrick played Cary Grant's second wife in My
Favorite Wife (1940), with Irene Dunne,[5] and helped Leo McCarey write the judge's lines in the second
courtroom scene.[6] Film scholar Maria DiBattista called her "the underrated Gail Patrick, who excelled in
feckless or selfish or simply second-best brunettes".[7]
Patrick attributed her screen success to an accident of timing. When she arrived in Hollywood, the movie
studios then wanted hussies, and they felt she looked like one. "I never thought I had much to do with
it", Patrick recalled. "Somebody made me up, somebody did my hair, somebody told me what to say and
do, and somebody took the picture".[8]
Patrick was so uncomfortable in front of the camera that she made it a point to never see her films. In
1979, she screened a print of My Man Godfrey given to her by a friend, and she watched herself on
screen for the first time. "My fright emerged as haughtiness and I can see where I got my image as a
snob, a meanie", Patrick said.[1]: 291 She said director Gregory La Cava told her she should suck on lemons
and beat up little children to prepare for the role of Cornelia Bullock. La Cava borrowed Patrick from
Paramount again for his next film, Stage Door. "I was never nastier", she said.[1]: 287
