Pat Nye

Pat Nye, OBE (11 February 1908 – 11 April 1994) was an English actress-manager. She had a six decade career, known in her later years for playing formidable women.

She was awarded the military O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1946 King's Honours List for her service as Chief Officer of the Wrens during the Second World War in which she served with distinction.

Born as Patricia Dorothy Nye into a middle-class family in London in 1908, she was the daughter of Elizabeth Innes Hall (1878–1946) and Ralph Nye (1876–1961), a chartered accountant.

Privately educated at the University of Lausanne and Lausanne Conservatory where she studied music, on her return to the UK she trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), making her professional debut in 1933 with the Rep Players at Croydon, playing Frau Feldman in Autumn Crocus, in the same year playing Martha Brown in Gallows Glorious at the old Shaftesbury Theatre. Later she joined the repertory company at the De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill-on-Sea. From 1934 to 1937 she was the manager of the Theatre Royal in Margate, which had previously been the theatrical home of Sarah Thorne, another actress-manager. At other times she also managed the Park Theatre in Hanwell and the Pier Theatre in Lowestoft.

She joined the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens) on the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, reaching the rank of Chief Officer and was awarded a military OBE.

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