Biography

Remembered for her repeated single word line in North by Northwest (1959). After Cary Grant came through the window of her hospital room in an effort to slip out of the building, Patricia looks up from her bed and cries, "Stop!" After putting on her eyeglasses and getting a better view of Grant, she asks pleadingly, "Stop!".

In November 1958, she was arrested at her Hollywood home and subsequently jailed, charged with a hit-and-run felony on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. She was freed on a $500 bond and the charge was dismissed in January 1959, when the driver of the other vehicle involved could not remember seeing her or talking to her after the accident.

She was found dead in her London flat. A subsequent coroner's inquest into her cause of death determined a verdict of suicide by barbiturate poisoning.

Was the original actress to play cult Coronation Street (1960) character Blanche Hunt in two episodes during August 1974. Following Patricia's suicide from an alcohol and barbiturates overdose, Maggie Jones - who was the other actress under consideration for the part following auditions - was quickly cast as her replacement in the rôle, which had been written into forthcoming scripts as a regular one.

Absconded from a boarding school and joined a repertory company at age 14.