Patricia Marshall

Patricia Marshall, born Marriam Patricia Murphy on January 13, 1924, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was an American actress and singer whose career spanned Broadway, film, and television. She died on December 11, 2018, at her home in Westwood, Los Angeles, at the age of 94, with family present.

Marshall attended West High School in Minneapolis before beginning a Broadway career that ran from 1942 to 1956. Her stage credits included You'll See Stars (1942), What's Up? (1943), Hats Off to Ice (1944), The Day Before Spring (1945), The Pajama Game (1954), and Mr. Wonderful (1956). Her performance in The Day Before Spring earned her a Theatre World Award in 1946, and a 1948 review in the Petaluma Argus-Courier identified her as the star of that production.

Beyond the stage, Marshall appeared in two feature films. Her role in the 1947 MGM musical Good News had originally been assigned to Gloria DeHaven, who left the production following a dispute with the producer over the script and was subsequently suspended, opening the part to Marshall. Her second film appearance came nearly three decades later, in a small role in The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975). That same year she appeared in an episode of M*A*S*H, playing a nurse in a poker scene; the series had been created by her husband, writer and producer Larry Gelbart. Marshall also sang on Steve Allen's The Tonight Show.

Marshall was first married to Daniel Markowitz in 1947; the marriage ended in divorce in 1956. They had two sons and a daughter, who died of cancer in 1998. Also in 1956, Marshall married Larry Gelbart, with whom she had a son and a daughter. Gelbart died of cancer in 2009.