Patricia Medina

Patricia Medina Headshot

Actress

Birth Name: Patricia Paz Medina

Birth Date: July 19, 1919

Death Date: April 28, 2012

Birth Place: West Derby, Liverpool, Lancashire, England, UK

Spouses: Joseph Cotten, Richard Greene

A celebrated beauty in her native England, actress Patricia Medina enjoyed modest success in Hollywood during the early 1950s, most notably in Orson Welles' "Mr. Arkadin" (1955), before spending the remainder of her career in episodic television and low-budget features. The child of Spanish and English parents, her exotic looks made her a natural for swashbuckling adventures like "Fortunes of Captain Blood" (1950) and "Botany Bay" (1953).

By the 1960s, she had married actor Joseph Cotten and worked almost exclusively on television, save for a risqué turn in "The Killing of Sister George" (1968). Medina retired from acting in 1978 to care for Cotten in his final years before she, herself, passed away in 2012 from natural causes at the age of 92. Though never a celebrated actress, Patricia Medina remained an alluring favorite among fans of B-movies from the 1950s and early '60s.

Born Patricia Paz Maria Medina in Liverpool, England on July 19, 1919, she was one of three daughters by a Spanish landowner father from the Canary Islands and an English mother. Raised outside of London in the town of Stanmore, she spent a lengthy period in Paris, where she became fluent in French, Spanish and Italian.

After winning top prize in a magazine beauty contest sponsored by Warner Bros., she began acting in her teens, and made her screen debut with an uncredited turn in the mystery "Dinner at the Ritz" (1937) with David Niven. She then found steady work in British features, rising quickly from bit player and supporting roles to the lead in "Don't Take it to Heart" (1944), opposite Richard Greene, whom she married in 1941.

Though a sophisticated presence on the screen, her appeal was largely due to her exotic visage, for which English PR reps named her as "the most beautiful face in the whole of England.

"Following World War II, she and Greene left England for Hollywood, where she signed with MGM. Initially, she found herself back as a supporting player in "The Secret Heart" (1946) and "The Foxes of Harrow" (1947) with Rex Harrison. But where many of her former British co-stars moved into A-pictures, Medina became a picture of second-on-the-bill programmers like "Francis" (1950), the first entry in Universal's much-maligned Francis the Talking Mule franchise.

Save for a supporting turn opposite James Stewart in "The Jackpot" (1950), she was a fixture of both costume dramas and adventures set in foreign locales like "Plunder in the Sun" (1953) with Glenn Ford and John Farrow's seafaring drama "Botany Bay" (1953) with James Mason and Alan Ladd. She also co-starred with actor Louis Hayward in a string of low-budget swashbucklers, including "Fortunes of Captain Blood" (1950) and "Captain Pirate" (1952).

By 1954, Medina tempered her film work with appearances in television anthology series. The following year, she appeared as the female lead in Orson Welles' ill-fated "Mr. Arkadin" (1955). Having divorced Greene in 1951, Medina married Joseph Cotten at the home of power couple David O. Selznick and Jennifer Jones in 1960.

Both actors experienced something of a career downturn in the following decade, working largely on television and in low-budget features like "Snow White and the Three Stooges" (1961), which featured Medina as the evil Queen. She made her Broadway debut with Cotton in a 1962 production of "Calculated Risk," then returned to an almost exclusive run on television until 1968, when she portrayed a predatory lesbian dominatrix in Robert Aldrich's scandalous "The Killing of Sister George" (1968).

The following year, she joined Cotten in Japan for "Latitude Zero" (1969), a ludicrous science fiction adventure produced by Toho Films, makers of the Godzilla film series. Medina retired from acting in 1978, and spent much of the next two decades caring for Cotten, who retired in 1981 following a stroke and a laryngectomy. His death in 1994 prompted her to write an autobiography, Laid Back in Hollywood, in 1998.

Medina would herself die of natural causes at the age of 92 on April 28, 2012.

By Paul Gaita

Credits

Latitude Zero

Actor
Lucretia
Movie
1970

The Name of the Game

Guest Star
Series
1968

The Killing of Sister George

Actor
Betty Thaxter
Movie
1968

MannixStream

Guest Star
Mrs. Corot
Series
1967

The Smothers Brothers Show

Guest Star
Series
1965

Branded-1965

Guest Star
Series
1965

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.Stream

Guest Star
Series
1964
100%

Grindl

Guest Star
Show
1963

Alfred Hitchcock HourStream

Actor
Series
1962

Whispering Smith

Guest Star
Flo Nichols
Show
1961

Snow White and the Three Stooges

Actor
Queen/Witch
Movie
1961

The Red Cloak

Actor
Laura Lanfranchi
Movie
1961

Dante

Guest Star
Show
1960

ThrillerStream

Actor
Series
1960

Missile From Hell

Actor
Zofia
Movie
1960

Ford Startime

Actor
Show
1959

The RebelStream

Guest Star
Series
1959

Lock-UpStream

Guest Star
Series
1959

BonanzaStream

Guest Star
Isabella Maria Ynez Y Castra De La Cuesta/Rosita Morales
Series
1959

RawhideStream

Guest Star
Series
1959

Count Your Blessings

Actor
Albertine
Movie
1959

Battle of the V-1

Actor
Zofia Nowak
Movie
1958

ZorroStream

Guest Star
Series
1957

Perry MasonStream

Guest Star
Harriet Balfour
Series
1957

Have Gun -- Will TravelStream

Guest Star
Series
1957

High Low Quiz

Guest
Show
1957

The Buckskin Lady

Actor
Angela Medley
Movie
1957

Uranium Boom

Actor
Jean Williams
Movie
1956

Stranger at My Door

Actor
Peg Jarret
Movie
1956

The Beast of Hollow Mountain

Actor
Sarita
Movie
1956

Miami Expose

Actor
Lila Hodges
Movie
1956

Duel on the Mississippi

Actor
Lili Scarlet
Movie
1955

Pirates of Tripoli

Actor
Princess Karjan
Movie
1955

Mr. ArkadinStream

Actor
Mily
Movie
1955
72%

Duel sur le Mississippi

Actor
Movie
1955

Climax!

Actor
Series
1954

Phantom of the Rue Morgue

Actor
Jeanette
Movie
1954

The Black Knight

Actor
Linet
Movie
1954

Drums of Tahiti

Actor
Wanda Spence
Movie
1954

Rheingold Theatre

Actor
Queen Nora
Show
1953

Vuelo Trágico

Actor
Movie
1953

Plunder of the Sun

Actor
Anna Luz
Movie
1953

Captain Pirate

Actor
Dona Isabella
Movie
1953

Botany Bay

Actor
Sally Munroe
Movie
1953

Sangaree

Actor
Martha Darby
Movie
1953

Desperate Search

Actor
Nora Stead
Movie
1953

Siren of Bagdad

Actor
Princess Zendi
Movie
1953

Showcase 39

Actor
Show
1952

Aladino y la Lámpara Maravillosa

Actor
Movie
1952

Aladdin and His Lamp

Actor
Princess Jasmine
Movie
1952

Lady in the Iron Mask

Actor
Princess Anne/Princess Louise
Movie
1952

Valentino

Actor
Lila Reyes
Movie
1951

The Magic Carpet

Actor
Lida
Movie
1951

Lady and the Bandit

Actor
Joyce Greene
Movie
1951

What's My Line?Stream

Guest
Game Show
1950

Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion

Actor
Nicole Dupre
Movie
1950

Fortunes of Captain Blood

Actor
Isabelita Sotomayor
Movie
1950

The Jackpot

Actor
Hildegarde Jonet/Hilda Jones
Movie
1950

FrancisStream

Actor
Maureen Gelder
Movie
1949

The Fighting O'Flynn

Actor
Fancy Free
Movie
1949

Children of Chance

Actor
Agostina
Movie
1949

The Three MusketeersStream

Actor
Kitty
Movie
1948
75%

Moss Rose

Actor
Audrey Ashton
Movie
1947

Waltz Time

Actor
Cenci Prohaska
Movie
1946

The Secret Heart

Actor
Kay Burns
Movie
1946

Kiss the Bride Goodbye

Actor
Joan Dodd
Movie
1945

Don't Take it to Heart

Actor
Lady Mary
Movie
1945

Hotel Reserve

Actor
Odette Roux
Movie
1944

They Met in the Dark

Actor
Mary
Movie
1943

Spitfire

Actor
Venetian Girl
Movie
1942

Dinner at the Ritz

Actor
(uncredited)
Movie
1937