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IMDbPro

Gail Patrick(1911-1980)

  • Producer
  • Actress
  • Additional Crew
IMDbProStarmeterSee rank
Gail Patrick in My Man Godfrey (1936)
A wife suspecting infidelity starts divorce proceedings, so the husband pretends to be insane in order to delay the divorce and clear up the misunderstanding.
Play trailer2:56
Love Crazy (1941)
5 Videos
99+ Photos
Cold, calculating and hard-as-nails is probably the best definition of Gail Patrick's femmes on the 30s and 40s silver screen, and the actress herself was no softie in real life. The tall, slender, patrician beauty was born with the equally stately-sounding name Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 20, 1911. She received a B.A. and was a dean of women at her alma mater, Howard College, for a time. She was studying pre-law at the University of Alabama at the time she, by happenstance, became a finalist in a nationwide contest for a Paramount film role (which she did not get). This led her to go to Hollywood and, despite her loss, the studio wound up offering her a studio contract at $50 a week (she managed to finagle her way to $75).

After the usual grooming in bit parts, Gail moved stealthily up the ladder to featured roles in a wide assortment of genres including the fantasy Death Takes a Holiday (1934), the melodramatic thriller The Crime of Helen Stanley (1934), the musical Mississippi (1935) and the easy comedy Early to Bed (1936). Just as quickly she began essaying the occasional co-star or leading lady -- that of a woman lawyer in Disbarred (1939) and a romantic diversion in the Zane Grey western adaptations of Wagon Wheels (1934) and Wanderer of the Wasteland (1935). She was most identified, however, in manipulative second leads while usually tangling with the star femme as the "other woman," haughty socialite or scheming villainess.

Gail participated grandly in three well-known film classics. In the screwball comedy My Man Godfrey (1936), she was at odds with Carole Lombard as a spoiled, treacherous sister; in Stage Door (1937), she engaged in some marvelous cat-fights with Ginger Rogers as a cynical wannabe actress, and in My Favorite Wife (1940) she played Cary Grant's exacting second wife who must contend with the reappearance of his first, supposedly dead wife Irene Dunne. Gail exuded wit, confidence, assertiveness and elegance in all her characters, nothing less, and her male co-stars were the sturdiest assortment Hollywood could offer -- Bing Crosby, Randolph Scott, Richard Dix, John Howard, Preston Foster, Dean Jagger and George Sanders.

In 1947, she did an abrupt about-face and left her highly respectable career following her third marriage. After involving herself successfully in clothing design, she became (as Gail Patrick Jackson) the executive producer of the Perry Mason (1957) TV series (1957-1966), alongside producer and husband (Thomas) Cornwell Jackson, who was a literary agent to author/creator Erle Stanley Gardner. The courtroom "whodunnit" was a long and highly successful run. She and Jackson divorced in 1969, and one of her few failures in life was in her attempt to revive the series with The New Perry Mason (1973) in 1973, but Monte Markham was a mighty pale comparison to Raymond Burr in the title role and the show quickly tanked. Divorced three times, she and Mr. Jackson had two adopted children. She was married to her fourth husband John Velde Jr., at the time of her death in 1980 of leukemia. She was 69.
BornJune 20, 1911
DiedJuly 6, 1980(69)
BornJune 20, 1911
DiedJuly 6, 1980(69)
IMDbProStarmeterSee rank

Photos101

Ralph Forbes and Gail Patrick in The Phantom Broadcast (1933)
Fredric March and Gail Patrick in Death Takes a Holiday (1934)
Fredric March and Gail Patrick in Death Takes a Holiday (1934)
Katharine Alexander, G.P. Huntley, Gail Patrick, Guy Standing, Kent Taylor, Henry Travers, and Helen Westley in Death Takes a Holiday (1934)
Kathleen Howard, Gail Patrick, Kent Taylor, Evelyn Venable, and Helen Westley in Death Takes a Holiday (1934)
Sidney Blackmer and Gail Patrick in John Meade's Woman (1937)
Melvyn Douglas, Tala Birell, Henry Mollison, Ned Norton, and Gail Patrick in The Lone Wolf Returns (1935)
Richard Denning and Gail Patrick in Quiet Please: Murder (1942)
Robert Montgomery and Gail Patrick in No More Ladies (1935)
Joan Crawford and Gail Patrick in No More Ladies (1935)
Lew Ayres and Gail Patrick in Murder with Pictures (1936)
Lew Ayres and Gail Patrick in Murder with Pictures (1936)

Known for

Carole Lombard and William Powell in My Man Godfrey (1936)
My Man Godfrey
8.0
  • Cornelia Bullock
  • 1936
Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, and Gail Patrick in My Favorite Wife (1940)
My Favorite Wife
7.3
  • Bianca Bates
  • 1940
Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, and Gail Patrick in Stage Door (1937)
Stage Door
7.7
  • Linda Shaw
  • 1937
Lionel Atwill and Kathleen Burke in Murders in the Zoo (1933)
Murders in the Zoo
6.5
  • Jerry Evans
  • 1933

Credits

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IMDbPro

Producer

  • Perry Mason (1957)
    Perry Mason
    • executive producer (as Gail Patrick Jackson)
    • TV Series
    • 1957–1966
  • Jacques Tourneur in Cool and Lam (1958)
    Cool and Lam
    • executive producer (as Gail Patrick Jackson)
    • TV Movie
    • 1958

Actress

  • Perry Mason (1957)
    Perry Mason
    • Woman at Bar (uncredited)
    • TV Series
    • 1966
  • Marsha Hunt, Gene Lockhart, and William Lundigan in The Inside Story (1948)
    The Inside Story
    • Audrey O'Connor
    • 1948
  • Preston Foster and Gail Patrick in King of the Wild Horses (1947)
    King of the Wild Horses
    • Ellen Taggert
    • 1947
  • Jane Frazee and William Marshall in Calendar Girl (1947)
    Calendar Girl
    • Olivia Radford
    • 1947
  • Bill Elliott and Vera Ralston in Plainsman and the Lady (1946)
    Plainsman and the Lady
    • Cathy Arnesen
    • 1946
  • Rendezvous with Annie (1946)
    Rendezvous with Annie
    • Dolores Starr
    • 1946
  • Robert Young and Dorothy McGuire in Claudia and David (1946)
    Claudia and David
    • Julia Naughton
    • 1946
  • The Madonna's Secret (1946)
    The Madonna's Secret
    • Ella Randolph
    • 1946
  • Lee Wilde and Lyn Wilde in Twice Blessed (1945)
    Twice Blessed
    • Mary Hale
    • 1945
  • Dennis O'Keefe and Helen Walker in Brewster's Millions (1945)
    Brewster's Millions
    • Barbara Drew
    • 1945
  • Up in Mabel's Room (1944)
    Up in Mabel's Room
    • Mabel Essington
    • 1944
  • Felix Basch, Alan Baxter, Tala Birell, William Henry, Nancy Kelly, Gertrude Michael, Gail Patrick, Rita Quigley, H.B. Warner, and Maris Wrixon in Women in Bondage (1943)
    Women in Bondage
    • Margot Bracken
    • 1943
  • Susan Hayward and John Carroll in Hit Parade of 1943 (1943)
    Hit Parade of 1943
    • Toni Jarrett
    • 1943
  • George Sanders and Gail Patrick in Quiet Please: Murder (1942)
    Quiet Please: Murder
    • Myra Blandy
    • 1942
  • Tales of Manhattan (1942)
    Tales of Manhattan
    • Ellen
    • 1942

Additional Crew

  • Monte Markham in The New Perry Mason (1973)
    The New Perry Mason
    • executive consultant
    • TV Series
    • 1973–1974

Videos5

Official Trailer
Trailer 2:56
Official Trailer
My Favorite Wife
Trailer 2:40
My Favorite Wife
Gallant Sons
Trailer 2:02
Gallant Sons
Stage Door
Trailer 1:44
Stage Door
My Man Godfrey
Trailer 0:52
My Man Godfrey

Personal details

Edit
  • Alternative name
    • Gail Patrick Jackson
  • Height
    • 5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
  • Born
    • June 20, 1911
    • Birmingham, Alabama, USA
  • Died
    • July 6, 1980
    • Los Angeles, California, USA(leukemia)
  • Spouses
      John Ernest Velde Jr.September 28, 1974 - July 6, 1980 (her death)
  • Parents
      Lawrence Fitzpatrick
  • Other works
    (11/16/46) Radio: Appeared in a "This Is Hollywood" production of "The Bachelor's Daughters".
  • Publicity listings
    • 8 Articles
    • 1 Pictorial
    • 3 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

Edit
  • Trivia
    Her first husband, Robert Howard Cobb, was the owner of the famous Brown Derby Restaurant. She performed on stage with the Lux Radio Theater at the Music Box Theater (now the Henry Fonda Music Box Theater), which was just around the corner on Hollywood Blvd. After 1938 she only had to walk across the street when the show moved to the CBS Radio Theater (now the Ricardo Montalban Theater) on Vine Street. Mr. Cobb is immortalized as the inventor of the Cobb Salad.
  • Quotes
    I always felt self-conscious as an actress because I'm tall. I see that it came over as haughtiness. I just don't have an actress' soul. I think mine has a dollar sign on it.
  • Salaries
      The Mysterious Rider
      (1933)
      $75 per week

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