LEE PATRICK: I Never Wanted to Be a Star

Films of the Golden Age
Issue Number 112
Spring 2023

“I was quite content to be a featured player, not because I wasn’t ambitious, but because featured players were never subjected to any of that great pressure under which pictures were always made.”

A versatile supporting player, LEE PATRICK (1901-1982), who came to films from the “Jazz Age” Broadway stage, played characters from both sides of the moral fence — from gun molls and hardened prisoners to chatty girlfriends and “other women” parts. She practically patented the “girl Friday” role when she played lovelorn secretary Effie to private eye boss Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) in the classic film noir THE MALTESE FALCON (1941). In later years, she found a strong comedy outlet with her chirpy-voiced gossips and snooty socialites in such delightful movie farces as AUNTIE MAME (1958) and the ghostly television series TOPPER (1953-55).

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