She was a world-class mezzo-soprano singer who starred in fourteen hundred (1,400) performances of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate Broadway musical, starting with its very first opening; she was beautiful, with a deep, velvety speaking voice, and 5’10” tall.
So Hollywood had no idea what to do with Patricia Morison, and cast her mostly in B movies, usually playing the female villain. Harking back to the previous paragraph, she was once replaced on set by Veronica Lake, because Lake was a full foot shorter than her, and the male lead was the dwarfish Alan Ladd (let’s hear it for the casting director!). Playing noveliste George Sand in 1960’s Song Without End, her voice was overdubbed with another actress’s voice because her own voice was judged “too deep” by the studio. Couldn’t win for losing.
But enough of all that. Here she is.
You can’t see it in the above pics, but Morison also had startling blue eyes, a fabulous figure and 39″-long hair.
And as a perennial baddie, you just know she had to have a gun about her:
Patricia Morison died in 2018, aged 103.
