Patricia Morison
American film, stage and television actress
The Times
May 30, 2018

In 1948 Patricia Morison was about to leave Hollywood for New York to start rehearsing the lead role in the Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate. It was something of a gamble, since Porter had not had a hit show for years. On the eve of her departure she received an offer of marriage from one of the most powerful moguls in Hollywood, Louis B Mayer, which would have made her a wealthy woman. She rejected his proposal — a wise move, as it turned out.

Porter had auditioned her in a large theatre to be sure of her projection and had convinced his producers to cast her. She played Lilli Vanessi, the diva cast as Kate in The Taming of the Shrew. Opposite her was Alfred Drake. Morison’s mezzosoprano voice was perfect for the songs Wunderbar and I Hate Men.

The show was an instant hit. “Morison is an agile and humorous actress who is not afraid of slapstick who can sing enchantingly,” wrote The New York Times. “She has captured perfectly the improvised tone of the comedy, and she plays it with spirit and drollery.”

She gave 1,007 performances, then 400 more in Jack Hylton’s London production at the Coliseum. In 1964, playing opposite Howard Keel, she was in the television adaptation that helped to launch BBC2, one night later than scheduled because of a power cut.

Morison was born Eileen Patricia Augusta Fraser Morison in New York in 1915. Her father, William, was a playwright from Belfast who acted under the name Norman Rainey. Her Liverpudlian mother, Selena (née Fraser), was of Irish extraction and worked for British intelligence in the First World War.

Patricia attended Washington Irving High School then studied with the Arts Students League. She made her debut on Broadway in 1933 in a shortlived play called Growing Pains.

She did a couple of screen tests and was picked up by Paramount. Although she had never travelled farther west than Detroit, she went to Hollywood on the Super Chief — “the train of the stars” — with her mother and they rented a house in Beverly Hills.

Morison became immersed in the social life of Hollywood’s British colony, with dinners at the homes of Basil Rathbone and Ronald Colman and tennis at the Chaplins’ house, where Charlie never stopped performing. She enjoyed riding in Bel-Air until she was thrown off her horse and the studio ordered her to stop. She was also a keen walker, which was unheard of in Beverly Hills. She avoided the Hollywood dating scene traps by taking her brother as an escort to nightclubs and parties.

Paramount’s publicity department began promoting her as “the Fire and Ice Girl — Lamour plus Lamarr equals La Morison”. Her first screen role was a gangster’s moll in a “B” film, Persons in Hiding, based on a book by J Edgar Hoover about a kidnapping, for which she had to learn how to fire a gun. Constantly miscast despite her looks and the longest hair in the film industry (at 39 inches), screen stardom eluded her.

When the Second World War broke out, Morison signed up to entertain the troops and toured Britain with Al Jolson and Merle Oberon. Back in Hollywood she worked at the Hollywood Canteen, where celebrities served refreshments and danced with GIs.

It was only by chance that she changed direction and became a singer. Her brother was a lounge singer at Scheherazade, a nightclub where doormen were dressed as Cossacks and a Russian orchestra played. One New Year’s Eve the pianist heard her sing a Russian ballad and told her: “Patrishinka, I vould arrange to study woice!” He became her teacher and she began to contemplate singing as a career.

She had also taken up painting and was spending weekends working on a portrait of Lillie Messinger, a story consultant at MGM, who invited her to dinner with the studio’s production chief, Louis B Mayer. Morison began accompanying her to Mayer’s home every Sunday for dinner followed by a film.

One day Messinger told Morison that Mayer was in love with her and was prepared to give her $100,000 the day they became engaged — as well as the jewellery he had shown her. Morison said she was not in love with him and would feel insulted by such a bargain.

In 1954, when Morison became the fifth actress to play Anna Leonowens opposite Yul Brynner in The King and I on Broadway, she also spent much of her time keeping an over-enthusiastic Brynner at arm’s length. She recalled that he had invited her to his dressing room, where she found him sitting in the lotus position, naked. “I didn’t take my eyes off his face and said, ‘You wish to speak to me, Mr Brynner?’ ” They later became good friends.

Morison eventually retired to Los Angeles, where she owned a home. Zsa Zsa Gabor was always trying to set her up with men, and finally, in frustration, told a friend: “You know what’s wrong with Pat? She has no initiative!” Morison never married, but said: “I came close. Not that I haven’t had love in my life — nobody well known — but I chose my own romances and was very fortunate with my relationships with lovely, interesting people.”

She was an active member of the community of Hollywood retirees and did more painting, exhibiting her work on several occasions. She continued to sing, and in her nineties was still able to perform in the same key as when she made her name in Kiss Me, Kate.

Patricia Morison, actress and singer, was born on March 19, 1915. She died on May 20, 2018.