Trivia

Was the actress with the longest hair in Hollywood (39 inches long). Universal pushed her as a rival to Dorothy Lamour when she changed her hairstyle to a middle parting.

Had a full mezzo-soprano vocal range.

She has the distinction of being the last villain encountered by Sherlock Holmes in the classic Universal series.

A longtime Los Angeles resident, she lived in Miracle Mile's Park La Brea apartments for more than 50 years.

Paramount promoted her with the line "Lamour plus Lamarr equals LaMorison.".

Had a very promising role in the classic Victor Mature/Richard Widmark crime thriller Kiss of Death (1947) as Mature's Italian wife who is raped and later commits suicide by putting her head in the kitchen gas oven. The censors cut her part out completely because they refused to allow a rape or suicide to be shown. Patricia's name still appears on the credits of the film.

Upon her death, she was cremated by The Neptune Society and her ashes were scattered at sea.

Served as Helen Hayes' understudy in the 1936 Broadway production of "Victoria Regina". She was never put on during the run, even when Hayes became ill. The theatre would simply close the show until the legendary star recovered.

When Song Without End (1960) director George Cukor thought Morison's voice as George Sand was too feminine, he had it re-dubbed with another actress.

Major supporter of gay rights.

Passing away shortly before Kirk Douglas and Olivia de Havilland, Morison was one of the last survivors of the golden age of Hollywood.

She was often cast as the femme fatale or "other woman". It was only when she returned to the Broadway stage that she achieved her greatest success as the lead in the original production of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate and subsequently in The King and I.

In 1948, Morison again abandoned her film career and returned to the stage, and achieved her greatest success. Cole Porter had heard her sing while in Hollywood and decided that she had the vocal expertise and feistiness to play the female lead in his new show, Kiss Me, Kate. Morison went on to major Broadway stardom when she created the role of Lilli Vanessi, the imperious stage diva whose own volatile personality coincided with that of her onstage role (Kate from The Taming of the Shrew). Kiss Me, Kate featured such songs as "I Hate Men," "Wunderbar", and "So in Love", reuniting Morison with her former Broadway co-star Alfred Drake. The play ran on Broadway from December 30, 1948 until July 28, 1951, for a total of 1,077 performances. Morison also played in the London production of Kiss Me, Kate, which ran for 400 performances.

Her mother, Selena Morison (née Fraser), worked for British Intelligence during World War I.

It was only by chance that she changed direction and became a singer. Her brother was a lounge singer at Scheherazade, a nightclub where doormen were dressed as Cossacks and a Russian orchestra played. One New Year's Eve the pianist heard her sing a Russian ballad and told her: "Patrishinka, I vould arrange to study woice!" He became her teacher and she began to contemplate singing as a career.

In 1948 Patricia Morison was about to leave Hollywood for New York to start rehearsing the lead role in the Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate. It was something of a gamble, since Porter had not had a hit show for years. On the eve of her departure she received an offer of marriage from one of the most powerful moguls in Hollywood, Louis B Mayer, which would have made her a wealthy woman. She rejected his proposal - a wise move, as it turned out.

Morison became immersed in the social life of Hollywood's British colony, with dinners at the homes of Basil Rathbone and Ronald Colman and tennis at the Chaplins' house, where Charlie never stopped performing. She enjoyed riding in Bel-Air until she was thrown off her horse and the studio ordered her to stop. She was also a keen walker, which was unheard of in Beverly Hills. She avoided the Hollywood dating scene traps by taking her brother as an escort to nightclubs and parties.

In her nineties was still able to perform in the same key as when she made her name in Kiss Me, Kate.

She was a lifelong liberal Democrat.

In December 2012, at age 97, she appeared on stage in an evening entitled Ladies of an Indeterminate Age at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles. Her co-stars included Charlotte Rae and Anne Jeffreys.

She had also taken up painting and was spending weekends working on a portrait of Lillie Messinger, a story consultant at MGM, who invited her to dinner with the studio's production chief, Louis B Mayer. Morison began accompanying her to Mayer's home every Sunday for dinner followed by a film. One day Messinger told Morison that Mayer was in love with her and was prepared to give her $100,000 the day they became engaged - as well as the jewellery he had shown her. Morison said she was not in love with him and would feel insulted by such a bargain.

Patricia Morison herself remarked, "I really had two careers, one in film and one in the theater. I was lucky.".

In 1954, when Morison became the fifth actress to play Anna Leonowens opposite Yul Brynner in The King and I on Broadway, she also spent much of her time keeping an over-enthusiastic Brynner at arm's length. She recalled that he had invited her to his dressing room, where she found him sitting in the lotus position, naked. "I didn't take my eyes off his face and said, 'You wish to speak to me, Mr Brynner?' " They later became good friends.

Zsa Zsa Gabor was always trying to set her up with men, and finally, in frustration, told a friend: "You know what's wrong with Pat? She has no initiative!" Morison never married, but said: "I came close. Not that I haven't had love in my life - nobody well known - but I chose my own romances and was very fortunate with my relationships with lovely, interesting people.".

In 1944, Morison briefly abandoned her film work and returned to the Broadway stage. In April, she opened at the Adelphi Theatre in the musical comedy, Allah Be Praised!. The play, however, was unsuccessful and closed after a very brief run of only 20 performances.

On November 18, 1999, Morison attended the opening night performance of the successful Kiss Me, Kate Broadway revival, the first such revival in New York, starring Brian Stokes Mitchell and Marin Mazzie (in the role Morison originated in 1948). At the time of her death in May 2018, Morison was one of the very few living cast members, and the only surviving featured player from that original production.

She also studied dance under Martha Graham. During this time she was employed as a dress shop designer at Russeks department store.

By 1942, the United States had become involved in World War II and, as a result, Morison became one of many celebrities who entertained American troops and their allies. In November of that year she joined Al Jolson, Merle Oberon, Allen Jenkins, and Frank McHugh on a USO Tour in Great Britain.

In March 2014, at age 99, she appeared onstage for Broadway Backwards 9, a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. She sang "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from Kiss Me, Kate.

She played the female antagonist in Tarzan and the Huntress (1947), the penultimate film starring Johnny Weissmuller as Edgar Rice Burroughs' title character.

Paramount's publicity department began promoting her as "the Fire and Ice Girl - Lamour plus Lamarr equals La Morison". Constantly miscast despite her looks and the longest hair in the film industry (at 39 inches), screen stardom eluded her.

Never married and childless, she lived in the Park La Brea apartment complex in Los Angeles from 1961 onwards.

Returning to films once again, Morison continued to be cast in supporting roles, all too often as femme fatales or unsympathetic "other women", including the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn vehicle, Without Love (1945), and the Deanna Durbin comedy-mystery Lady on a Train (1945).

In 1971 she and Yul Brynner performed "Shall We Dance" from The King and I on a broadcast of the Tony Awards.

Morison returned in the 40's to acting in the cinema as a freelance performer.

She did a couple of screen tests and was picked up by Paramount. Although she had never travelled farther west than Detroit, she went to Hollywood on the Super Chief - "the train of the stars" - with her mother and they rented a house in Beverly Hills.

In August 1972, she appeared in a production of The Sound of Music at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Morison performed on stage numerous times-largely in stock and touring productions. These included both musical and dramatic plays, among them Milk and Honey, Kismet, The Merry Widow, Song of Norway, Do I Hear a Waltz?, Bell, Book and Candle, The Fourposter, Separate Tables, and Private Lives.

In later years Morison devoted herself to painting-one of her early passions-and had several showings in and around Los Angeles.

She was reportedly dropped from The Glass Key (1942) due to her towering over her co-star Alan Ladd.

In 1938, Morison appeared in the musical The Two Bouquets, which ran for only 55 performances. Among the other cast members was Alfred Drake, who, years later, would star opposite Morison in the Broadway hit Kiss Me, Kate.

Her father, William, was a playwright from Belfast who acted under the name Norman Rainey. Her Liverpudlian mother, Selena (née Fraser), was of Irish extraction and worked for British intelligence in the First World War.

Cole Porter had auditioned her for Kiss me, Kate in a large theatre to be sure of her projection and had convinced his producers to cast her. She played Lilli Vanessi, the diva cast as Kate in The Taming of the Shrew. Opposite her was Alfred Drake. Morison's mezzosoprano voice was perfect for the songs Wunderbar and I Hate Men.

Patricia attended Washington Irving High School then studied with the Arts Students League. She made her debut on Broadway in 1933 in a shortlived play called Growing Pains.

She gave 1,007 performances, then 400 more in Jack Hylton's London production at the Coliseum of "Kiss me, Kate". In 1964, playing opposite Howard Keel, she was in the television adaptation that helped to launch BBC2, one night later than scheduled because of a power cut.

She had also taken up painting and was spending weekends working on a portrait of Lillie Messinger, a story consultant at MGM, who invited her to dinner with the studio's production chief, Louis B Mayer. Morison began accompanying her to Mayer's home every Sunday for dinner followed by a film.

She performed in still more productions of Kiss, Me Kate at the Seattle Opera House (opening in April 1965) and the New York City Center (opening May 12, 1965).

She appeared in 1952 on the Christmas Party episode of the Honeymooners segment of Jackie Gleason's show playing herself as Trixie Norton's former Vaudevillian friend.

She appeared in The Fallen Sparrow (1943) with John Garfield and Maureen O'Hara, and Calling Dr. Death (1945), one of the "Inner Sanctum" films, starring Lon Chaney Jr.

Among her non-musical television performances were a recurring role on the detective series The Cases of Eddie Drake (1952) co-starring Don Haggerty on the DuMont Television Network and a guest appearance with Vincent Price on Have Gun - Will Travel (1958) starring Richard Boone.