Lee Patterson(1929-2007)
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Manly actor Lee Patterson will always be remembered by American
audiences as the hunky detective alongside equally hunky detectives
Van Williams and
Troy Donahue on
Surfside 6 (1960) from the early
1960s. But, prior to that, he had a solid second-string career in
British films playing Americanized parts.
Born in British Columbia, he went to a college in Ontario before
crossing the ocean and settling in England. A former stage manager and
theatre publicist in his salad days, he was a rock-solid presence in
such "B" films as Terror Street (1953) (aka
Terror Street),
The Good Die Young (1954),
Reach for the Sky (1956),
The Mailbag Robbery (1957) (aka The
Mailbag Robbery) and
Jack the Ripper (1959). The
monumental success of the private eye series
77 Sunset Strip (1958) and
the hair-combing Edd Byrnes "Kookie" craze
instigated a number of imitations with
Surfside 6 (1960) being just one
of them. It lasted a rather short two seasons but it did establish Lee
here in America. As good looking as the exotic locales behind him on
the show, his own good looks carried him much further, going on to star
in a number of guest spots and earning a slew of soap opera roles along
the way, most notably on
One Life to Live (1968) as
Erika Slezak's one-time husband. He grew
into a reliable character actor and was also seen on the stage in later
years.
Out of the limelight for quite some time, Lee remained quite private,
and his death on Valentine's Day in 2007 at a Galveston Island, Texas
hospital of congestive heart failure (complicated by lung cancer and
emphysema) was not reported until nearly a year later. A sizable
portion of his estate went to charitable organizations such as the St.
Jude Children's Research Hospital, which was founded by his good friend
Danny Thomas.
audiences as the hunky detective alongside equally hunky detectives
Van Williams and
Troy Donahue on
Surfside 6 (1960) from the early
1960s. But, prior to that, he had a solid second-string career in
British films playing Americanized parts.
Born in British Columbia, he went to a college in Ontario before
crossing the ocean and settling in England. A former stage manager and
theatre publicist in his salad days, he was a rock-solid presence in
such "B" films as Terror Street (1953) (aka
Terror Street),
The Good Die Young (1954),
Reach for the Sky (1956),
The Mailbag Robbery (1957) (aka The
Mailbag Robbery) and
Jack the Ripper (1959). The
monumental success of the private eye series
77 Sunset Strip (1958) and
the hair-combing Edd Byrnes "Kookie" craze
instigated a number of imitations with
Surfside 6 (1960) being just one
of them. It lasted a rather short two seasons but it did establish Lee
here in America. As good looking as the exotic locales behind him on
the show, his own good looks carried him much further, going on to star
in a number of guest spots and earning a slew of soap opera roles along
the way, most notably on
One Life to Live (1968) as
Erika Slezak's one-time husband. He grew
into a reliable character actor and was also seen on the stage in later
years.
Out of the limelight for quite some time, Lee remained quite private,
and his death on Valentine's Day in 2007 at a Galveston Island, Texas
hospital of congestive heart failure (complicated by lung cancer and
emphysema) was not reported until nearly a year later. A sizable
portion of his estate went to charitable organizations such as the St.
Jude Children's Research Hospital, which was founded by his good friend
Danny Thomas.