Gail Patrick
| Gail Patrick | |
|---|---|
1939 studio publicity photograph
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| Born |
Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick June 20, 1911 Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | July 6, 1980 (aged 69) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Other names |
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| Alma mater | Howard College |
| Years active | 1932–1973 |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Children | 2 |
Gail Patrick (June 20, 1911 – July 6, 1980) was an American film actress and television producer. Often cast as the bad girl or the other woman, she appeared in more than 60 feature films between 1932 and 1948, notably My Man Godfrey (1936), Stage Door (1937) and My Favorite Wife (1940). After retiring from acting she became, as Gail Patrick Jackson, president of Paisano Productions and executive producer of the Perry Mason television series (1957–66). She was one of the first women producers, and the only female executive producer in prime time during the nine years Perry Mason was on the air. She served two terms (1960–62) as vice president of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and as president of its Hollywood chapter—the first woman to serve in a leadership capacity in the academy, and its only female leader until 1983.
Gail Patrick was born Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick on June 20, 1911, in Birmingham, Alabama. Her parents were Lawrence C. Fitzpatrick, a municipal fireman, and LaVelle Fitzpatrick.
After graduating from Howard College, she remained as acting dean of women. She completed two years of law school at the University of Alabama and aspired to be the state's governor. In 1932, "for a lark", she entered a Paramount Pictures beauty and talent contest and won train fare to Hollywood for herself and her brother. Although she did not win the contest (for "Miss Panther Woman" in the 1932 film, Island of Lost Souls), Patrick was offered a standard contract. She visited the studio officials by herself and asked to negotiate. She said that she must have $75 a week instead of the customary $50, and that she would not accept the standard 12-week-layoff provision. "I also read the fine print and blacked out the clause saying I had to do cheesecake stills," Patrick recalled in a 1979 interview. "In the back of my mind I had this idea I could never go home to practice law if such stills were floating around."
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