Patricia Collinge

Patricia Collinge, born Eileen Cecilia Collinge on September 20, 1892, in Dublin, Ireland, was an Irish-American actress and writer whose career spanned stage, film, and television. She died on April 10, 1974, in New York City at the age of 81 and is buried with her husband at Saint Mary's Cemetery in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Collinge's stage career began in London in 1904, when she appeared in Little Black Sambo and Little White Barbara at the Garrick Theatre. She immigrated to the United States with her mother in 1907 and made her Broadway debut the following year as a flower girl in The Queens of the Moulin Rouge. In 1910, she appeared as a supporting player in The Thunderbolt, starring Louis Calvert, at the New Theatre. The year 1911 brought her the role of Youth in the Broadway production of Everywoman, with Laura Nelson Hall in the title role, a role she reprised in the 1912 London production starring Alexandra Carlisle. In December 1913, she appeared as Agnes alongside Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Amelia Bingham, and William H. Crane in The New Henrietta, based on a comedy by Bronson Howard, at the Knickerbocker Theatre, and she appeared with Fairbanks again in 1914 in He Comes Up Smiling. She toured in A Regular Businessman, originated the role of Pollyanna Whittier in Pollyanna, and toured in Tillie in 1919.

Among her most significant Broadway credits were Autumn Crocus, in which she starred in 1932, and the original 1939 Broadway production of The Little Foxes, where she played Birdie Hubbard opposite Tallulah Bankhead in the lead role. Additional Broadway appearances included Mary Rose, Dame Nature, The Heiress, Just Suppose, The Dark Angel, The Importance of Being Earnest, To See Ourselves, and Lady with a Lamp. Her final Broadway appearance came in December 1952 in I've Got Sixpence at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Collinge's film career began in 1941 when she reprised the role of Birdie Hubbard in the motion picture adaptation of The Little Foxes, this time starring Bette Davis. The performance earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a win at the National Board of Review Awards. She subsequently appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt in 1943, Tender Comrade that same year, and The Nun's Story in 1959. Her contributions to Hitchcock's work extended beyond acting: she rewrote a garage scene in Shadow of a Doubt after Hitchcock and the actors were dissatisfied with the existing dialogue, and she collaborated with Alma Reville and Ben Hecht on the screenplay for Hitchcock's Lifeboat in 1944.

On television, Collinge appeared in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The Cheney Vase," in which she played an elderly woman held hostage by thieves, portrayed by Darren McGavin and Ruta Lee, seeking a valuable vase. She also appeared in two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, including "The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow," in which her character is locked in a vault by her niece's husband after discovering he is a forger. Additional television credits included Laramie in 1961, The United States Steel Hour in 1962, East Side/West Side in 1963, and N.Y.P.D. in 1967.

As a writer, Collinge adapted the French drama by André Birabeau into the play Dame Nature in 1938. She contributed short stories to The New Yorker and wrote for The New York Times Book Review. Her travelogue The Small Mosaics of Mr. and Mrs. Engel earned her a gold medal from the Italian government, and she co-authored The B.O.W.S. with Margalo Gillmore.