1. Gail Patrick was one of the first female producers, and the only female executive producer in prime time during the nine years Perry Mason was on the air.
38 Facts About Gail Patrick
1. 2.
Gail Patrick was born Margaret LaVelle Fitzpatrick on June 20,1911, in Birmingham, Alabama.
3.
Gail Patrick completed two years of law school at the University of Alabama and aspired to be the state's governor.
4.
Gail Patrick visited the studio officials by herself and asked to negotiate.
5.
Gail Patrick said that she must have $75 a week instead of the customary $50 and that she would not accept the standard 12-week layoff provision.
6.
Gail Patrick appeared in more than 60 movies between 1932 and 1948.
7.
Gail Patrick played Cary Grant's second wife in My Favorite Wife, with Irene Dunne, and helped Leo McCarey write the judge's lines in the second courtroom scene.
8.
Gail Patrick attributed her screen success to an accident of timing.
9.
Gail Patrick was so uncomfortable in front of the camera that she made it a point to never see her films.
10.
Gail Patrick said director Gregory La Cava told her she should suck on lemons and beat up little children to prepare for the role of Cornelia Bullock.
11.
Gail Patrick had maintained her network in show business and shared Gardner's love for the law.
12.
Gail Patrick developed the television series Perry Mason and sold it to CBS, where it ran for nine seasons and earned the first Silver Gavel Award presented for television drama by the American Bar Association.
13.
Nelson said that years later, Gail Patrick told her she had written up the contract herself, and that it was so wild and favorable to Paisano Productions that she had no idea CBS would accept it.
14.
Gail Patrick developed a half-hour Paisano Productions series based on Gardner's Cool and Lam stories.
15.
Gail Patrick served two terms as vice president of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and as president of its Hollywood chapter.
16.
Gail Patrick was the first woman to serve in a leadership capacity in the academy, and its only female leader until 1983.
17.
Gail Patrick was a Democrat who supported the campaign of Adlai Stevenson during the 1952 presidential election.
18.
Gail Patrick purchased it from the estate of writer-producer Mark Hellinger after his death in December 1947.
19.
On December 17,1936, Patrick married restaurateur Robert H Cobb, owner of the Brown Derby and principal owner of the Hollywood Stars baseball team.
20.
An ardent baseball fan, she was called "Ma Gail Patrick" and threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the team's new Gilmore Field on May 2,1939.
21.
Gail Patrick became diabetic and had to take insulin the rest of her life.
22.
In July 1947, Patrick married her third husband, Thomas Cornwell Jackson, head of the Los Angeles office of the J Walter Thompson advertising agency.
23.
Gail Patrick created a business designing clothing for children, and moved to a shop on Rodeo Drive that she called the Enchanted Cottage.
24.
Gail Patrick ran the shop for eight years with considerable success.
25.
Gail Patrick was given the title of executive consultant for the resulting series, The New Perry Mason.
26.
On July 6,1980, Gail Patrick died from leukemia at the age of 69 at her Hollywood home.
27.
Gail Patrick had been treated for the disease for four years, but kept her illness secret from everyone but her husband.
28.
Gail Patrick was twice named Los Angeles Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles Times, and she received awards from the National Association of Women Lawyers and the City of Hope National Medical Center.
29.
In 1955, Gail Patrick returned to Howard College, her alma mater, for the laying of the cornerstone of its new Edgewood campus.
30.
Gail Patrick was presented with a citation for outstanding achievement, "in recognition of achievements in the arts, in service to her fellow man, and devotion to home and family".
31.
Samford University presents the Gail Patrick Directing Award in her honor.
32.
In 1960, Gail Patrick received the Mystery Writers of America's Raven Award for her contributions to the mystery genre as executive producer of Perry Mason.
33.
In 1962, Gail Patrick was named the Delta Zeta Woman of the Year.
34.
In 1970, Gail Patrick was appointed national honorary chairman of the American Lung Association's Christmas Seals campaign.
35.
Gail Patrick accepted the post as "a meaningful way" to pay tribute to her Perry Mason colleagues who died of respiratory disease associated with tobacco smoking: Ray Collins, who died of emphysema; William Talman, who publicly blamed cigarettes for his lung cancer; and William Hopper, who died from pneumonia following a stroke.
36.
In 1973, Gail Patrick became the first national chairman of the American Diabetes Association board of directors.
37.
The Gail Patrick Stage is a film soundstage that opened in 2008 at Columbia College Hollywood.
38.
Gail Patrick was a member of the film school's board of trustees and funded the facility through her estate.