Patricia Medina

A ravishing brunette actress with large, dark eyes, Patricia Medina began in routine British films in the late 1930s and worked her way up to leads in the mid-40s, whereupon she was promptly summoned to Hollywood. Medina practically had to begin at the beginning again, playing modest supporting roles as second fiddle to June Allyson, Maureen O'Hara and other more established actresses. She made it to leading roles in 1950, but the signs were not promising: "Francis" kicked off the famous but asinine talking mule comedies, and "Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion" was hardly a showcase for Medina, either. She fared somewhat better in "Fortunes of Captain Blood" that same year, not because the film was so good but because it first teamed her with the also-British and equally dashing Louis Hayward, with whom she would successfully co-star in four films.

With her lush good looks and classy yet impassioned demeanor, Medina was usually typecast in period melodrama, generally second features or middling "A" budget fare, but including enjoyable films like "The Lady in the Iron Mask" (1952) and "The Black Knight" (1954). Two standouts, though, were William Witney's gem of a B-Western, "Stranger at My Door" (1956), and Orson Welles' bizarre companion piece to "Citizen Kane", "Mr. Arkadin" (1955). She was quite prolific during the 1950s but her film career largely petered out at the end of the decade. Having married and divorced handsome British-born 40s lead Richard Greene (TV's "Robin Hood"), Medina wed actor Joseph Cotten in 1960. The two enjoyed success onstage in the 60s in "Calculated Risk" and she later traveled with him as he kept busy acting. She later returned to the screen in Robert Aldrich's adaptation of the lesbian-themed drama "The Killing of Sister George" in 1968.