Pat Breslin

Patricia Rose Breslin was born on March 17, 1926, in New York City, the daughter of Edward Breslin, a judge of Irish Catholic descent, and Marjorie Breslin, who was of Scottish descent. One of three children, she grew up in the Parkchester neighborhood of the Southeast Bronx. She completed her secondary education at the Academy of Mount St. Ursula High School in the Bronx and went on to attend the College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York. She died on October 12, 2011, at age 85, following a lengthy hospitalization with pancreatitis. Her funeral was held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.

Breslin built a career across stage, film, and television spanning several decades. Her Broadway credit includes the 1955 play The Wayward Saint. Her television work began as early as 1950, when she co-starred in "The Long Walk," the May 30 episode of Cameo Theatre. In 1954, she guest-starred alongside Peter Mark Richman in an episode of NBC's legal drama Justice, and that same year appeared in a supporting role as Sylvia Franklin Saperstein in the sports film Go, Man, Go!, which featured Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, and the Harlem Globetrotters. Also in 1954, she appeared in an episode of the CBS anthology series Appointment with Adventure.

From 1955 to 1958, Breslin co-starred with Jackie Cooper in the NBC sitcom The People's Choice, playing his girlfriend and later wife, Amanda Miller. Between 1960 and 1963, she made three guest appearances on CBS's Perry Mason, portraying the defendant in each episode: Karen Lewis in "The Case of the Lavender Lipstick" in 1960, Karen Ross in "The Case of the Poison Pen-Pal" in 1962, and Laura Hewes in "The Case of the Prankish Professor" in 1963. In 1960, she played the newlywed wife of William Shatner's character in the Twilight Zone episode "Nick of Time," and returned to that series in 1963 to portray Abigail Sloan in "No Time Like the Past." That same year she appeared in the CBS anthology episode "The Haven" on The DuPont Show with June Allyson, alongside Ralph Bellamy and Paul Fix. She also guest-starred on the NBC Western series Tate, on Nick Adams' ABC Western The Rebel, and on Jack Lord's ABC adventure series Stoney Burke.

In film, Breslin starred in two William Castle productions: the horror film Homicidal in 1961 and the thriller I Saw What You Did in 1965. In 1964, she was cast as Laura Harrington Brooks on the ABC primetime soap opera Peyton Place, a role she held through 1965. She subsequently played Meg Baldwin on ABC's General Hospital from 1965 to 1969.

From 1953 to 1969, Breslin was married to character actor and director David Orrick McDearmon, with whom she had two sons. In 1969, she married Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns and later the Baltimore Ravens, who legally adopted her sons. The family lived first in Waite Hill, Ohio, before relocating to Owings Mills, Maryland, in 1995.

Following her move to the Baltimore area, Breslin became an active philanthropist in both Cleveland and Baltimore. She and Modell donated five million dollars to the SEED School of Maryland, a public boarding school for disadvantaged students, and contributed 3.5 million dollars toward the restoration of the Lyric Opera House. Breslin served on the boards of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Walters Art Museum and donated to the Baltimore Museum of Art. In Cleveland, she helped establish the Hospice of the Western Reserve at the Cleveland Clinic and supported the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. She was also active with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Cleveland Musical Arts Association, the Cleveland Ballet, the Playhouse Square Foundation, and the Cerebral Palsy Association.