Notes:

Biography for Neva Patterson
Date of Birth 10 February 1920, Nevada, Iowa, USA

Date of Death 14 December 2010, Brentwood, California, USA (complications from a broken hip)

Birth Name Neva Louise Patterson

Height 5' 8" (1.73 m)

Mini Biography

The arch and edgy, somewhat hard-looking, dark-haired Neva Patterson, known by face perhaps as opposed to name, was a familiar presence in heavily-styled drama of the 1950s and 1960s. Christened Neva Louise Patterson in 1920 (some sources incorrectly state 1922) to a mailman father and seamstress mother, she was born and raised in Nevada. She loved putting on plays at home (along with her brother, Harlon) and eventually worked as an usher at Nevada's Circle Theatre.

Neva graduated from high school in 1937 and found secretarial jobs to make do until she moved to New York the next year. She worked long and hard at such jobs as secretary, hotel singer and bit part performer before finally making her Broadway bow in "The Druid Circle" in 1947. By this time she had married a professional dancer, but they divorced in 1948. More plays came her way: "Ring 'Round the Moon" (1950), "Susan and God" (1951), "The Cocktail Party" (1951) and "The Seven-Year Itch" (1952). Television became a viable medium for her in the late 1940s, and by 1957 she had more than 400 dramas to her credit.

Neva appeared sporadically in film and supported herself with roles in such prominent fare as Taxi (1953), her debut; The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956); Desk Set (1957); An Affair to Remember (1957), as Cary Grant's socialite fiancée; Too Much, Too Soon (1958) as Diana Barrymore's mother, writer Blanche Oelrichs (aka Michael Strange); David and Lisa (1962); Dear Heart (1964); and Counterpoint (1967), to name a few. Her brittle, overwrought ladies were notoriously glamorous, usually business-oriented and, more often than not, quite overbearing.

Neva continued in this fashion with a flux of TV roles and graced such short-lived series as "The Governor & J.J." (1969) as the secretary to governor Dan Dailey in 1969; "Nichols" (1971), wherein she played a powerful, corruptible matriarch opposite James Garner; and 1974's _"Doc Elliot" (1974)_, as a widow and frequent confidante to medic James Franciscus. None of these lasted more than a season. In 1980 the actress made a brief Broadway comeback as a replacement in "Romantic Comedy". She later had recurring roles in the TV movie "V: The Final Battle" (1984) and in the series "Webster" (1983), "St. Elsewhere" (1982) and "Berrenger's" (1985).

Married three times, she adopted two children with her third husband, writer James Lee, who died in 2002. Neva, who retired in the early 1990s, passed away at age 90 of complications from a pelvic fracture in December of 2010.
IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Spouse James Lee (15 September 1957 - 2 July 2002) (his death) 2 children
Michael Ellis (22 March 1953 - 1956) (divorced)
Thomas Gallagher (? - 1948) (divorced)
Trivia: Sister of Harlon Patterson. Adoptive mother of Megan Lee.

Neva married Thomas Gallagher in 1948, and was divorced. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Neva married Michael Ellis on 22 Mar 1953, and was divorced. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Neva married James Henderson Lee on 15 Sep 1957. James was born on 4 Jan 1923 in Michigan, USA; died on 2 Jul 2002 in Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, California, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]