Neva Patterson

Lean-framed, 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 radio, stage, film and TV. 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, Iowa. She loved putting on plays at home (along with her brother, Harlan) and performed in high school plays. Her interest was further spurred on when she found work as an usher at Nevada's Circle Theatre. Neva graduated from high school in 1937 and worked for a short time in Des Moines finding secretarial jobs to make do until she moved to New York the next year. She worked long and hard at such jobs as secretary, radio/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 quickly divorced in 1948. More