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Patricia Knight Profile
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Photo gallery |
| (Marjory / Margaret Heinzen) |
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| 28 April 15 | is born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her father's a leather broker. |
| ? | attends private lessons at Boston Boarding School |
| ? | leaves school at age 14 to attend drama classes |
| ? | takes the Leland Powers model course |
| ? | gets a dancing part in a show at the Capital Theater in New York |
| ? | is on stage in No War in Troy and Here Come the Clowns |
| Late 36 | meets young actor Cornel Wilde at a booking office in New York. She dislikes him at first but agrees later to date. |
| 21 September 37 | ten months later she elopes with Wilde to Elkton, Maryland. He's twenty-two; she's seventeen. They can't spare any of his $35 for a ring, so she uses one she has had since childhood. He's 22; she's 22. |
| they spend their honeymoon performing in an unsuccessful off-Broadway revival of Moon over Mulberry Street |
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| Spring 38 | the Wildes participate in a drama festival at Ann Arbor, Michigan |
| Summer 38 | they are in summer stock at Gloucester, Massachusetts |
| 39 | looses her baby in a miscarriage |
| Laurence Oliver and Vivian Leigh hire Wilde as a technical advisor on the fencing sequences for their Romeo and Juliet, to be staged in New York the following year. She is contracted for a small part. |
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| 9 May 40 | Romeo and Juliet debuts on stage in New York, after San Francisco and Chicago |
| ? | the Wildes move from New York to Hollywood |
| 22 February 43 | her daughter, Wendy, is born in a Los Angeles hospital |
| 44 | she calls him "Hormel," and he considers her prettier than any of his leading ladies. They live in an English-style Beverly Hills canyon house. |
| columnist Sidney Skolsky reports that she is an obliging person and anything Cornel does is okay with her |
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| 46 | dates several influential professionals to help her own screen career |
| c. 46 | screen-tests opposite her husband for Forever Amber |
| October 47 | the Wildes have separated three times |
| confesses to Hedda Hopper that if work will interfere with her marriage, she will settle for no career |
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| 49 | Cornel Wilde proves to be a casting problem because of his insistence that she be given star status. Columbia gives in by starring them together in Shockproof. |
| director Douglas Sirk considers her handsomeness rather angular and thinks she is not enormously talented during the filming of Shockproof |
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| March 49 | accompanies her husband to Switzerland where he's on location for Four Days Leave. There she meets Danish skating champion and actor Nils Larsen. |
| c. Summer 50 | on location in Austria for The Magic Face, she rekindles her relationship with Larsen |
| August 50 | they perform pre-Broadway outings in summer stock theaters in Dennis and Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Westport, Connecticut; and Marblehead, Maine |
| ? | back in Hollywood, the Wildes pay $77,000 for a mansion formerly owned by film star Norma Talmadge, which sits atop a hill in exclusive Bel Air |
| February 51 | the Berkshire Players asks her to do Gaslight in Bermuda. She will have a quick visit with Cornel in Florida. |
| June 51 | even though she called off her trip to Nevada, chums expect her to marry her Brazilian admirer, Loupo de Macao, after her divorce from Wilde |
| July 51 | makes her home for six weeks at Cal-Neva Lodge at Crystal Bay, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in order to establish Nevada residency |
| August 51 | is seen ringside at the Dorothy Shay show with Loupo de Macao |
| the property settlement between her and Wilde has to be rewritten because one of their oil wells came in |
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| 30 August 51 | divorces Wilde in Reno, Nevada. She obtains custody of daughter Wendy, with Cornel ordered to pay $200 weekly alimony and child support. Afterwards, she claims: "I don’t want to get married to anyone for a year or so. Loupo is nice and he understands." 33-year-old Loupo, reported to be in the coffee business, has been her almost constant companion in Reno these last weeks. Five days later Wilde marries the ex of actor Franchot Tone, former nightclub songstress-turned-actress Jean Wallace. |
| December 51 | those long distance calls to her are from TV director Bud Turner. She admits this could be a serious romance. |
| January 52 | she and Warner Taub are marooned on the Pacific Coast Highway during a storm. They have to crawl out of the car windows and wade knee deep in mud to the nearby Santa Ynez Inn. The car later washes into the ocean. |
| she and Chuck Isaacs discover each other and are a new twosome at Ciro’s |
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| April 52 | she and Arthur Loew, Jr., have quiet dates |
| May 52 | is a new two-about-town with actor Kirk Douglas |
| is seen with actor Ralph Meeker at Jacks at the Beach |
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| July 52 | her escort at the Interlude is actor Hugh O’Brien |
| November 52 | her brief romance with actor Scott Brady ends when he splashes a glass of champagne into her face at Denise Darcel’s big Hollywood party. In the meantime, Steve Cochran amuses the guests by taking off his trousers and dancing around the room. |
| is seen at the Encore Room with actor Lance Fuller, estranged husband of Joy Lansing |
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| attends a big Hollywood party with Fuller |
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| December 52 | she and Fuller are a twosome at the Mocambo |
| 53 | doesn't appear in films any longer and takes her ex to court in an effort to raise his alimony payments to $750. The payments are ordered raised to $400 a week, but, when she goes to Europe, Cornel obtains custody of their daughter when it becomes apparent that she has no intention of returning. |
| February 53 | is seen with Fuller at Jacks at the Beach. Fuller admits she may be his next mate. |
| July 53 | is the new date of actor Helmut Dantine |
| 29 August 54 | at a party at the home of friends, she announces she will marry Niels Larsen, Danish cosmetics maker and film and TV executive, in Copenhagen, Denmark, on October 24. This will be the anniversary of their meeting three years ago. Larsen plans to import films for television in Denmark. |
| September 54 | her ex-husband, Cornel Wilde, gets full custody of their daughter, Wendy, until Pat returns from Europe |
| October 54 | through their lawyers, she and Wilde agree that their daughter will stay with Cornel and his new wife, actress Jean Wallace, when Pat goes to Europe to marry Niels Larsen |
| 24 October 54 | marries Niels Larson, a Danish businessman and former newspaperman |
| December 54 | her daughter, Wendy, receives a card from her announcing that she and Larsen were married on schedule |
| ? | the Larsens live in Spain and, briefly, in Paris, France |
| 69 | she and Larsen return to the States |
| 71 | becomes the widow of Larsen |
| Mid-70s | her daughter, Wendy, is still unmarried |
| ? | she and Cornel Wilde reunite at their daughter's wedding. Wendy works as a gardener and lives in Berkeley. |
| ? | marries David E. Wright, a building advisor |
| ? | lives with her husband in Hemet, California |
| 22 May 96 | becomes the widow of Wright, who dies in at age 72 in Hemet |
| 04 | resides at the Cornell House Board and Care Facility in Hemet |
| 26 October 04 | as Patricia Knight, she dies at age 89 at the Cornell House in Hemet, California |
| Sources: "The Wind Beneath Their Wings" by Colin Briggs for Classic Images, Cornel Wilde: The Swashbucklers by James Robert Parish, Valley Morning Star, The Era, The Monessen Daily Independent, Reno Evening Gazette, The Herald-Press, Gazette and Bulletin, Pottstown Mercury, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, The Zanesville Signal, Waukesha Daily Freeman, The Lethbridge Herald, The Bridgeport Post, Made in Heaven by Victoria Houseman, Modern Screen, Hollywood Citizen-News, David W. McDole, www.Ancestry.com | |
| Recommended Books: | |
| Links: Filmography | |