She is survived by her daughter, 3 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. Peaches loved her friends deeply and spoke with her BHS friends often up-to her death.
Services will be held at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills in late March. More details to come.
Patricia Cleora Alphin was born on 1927, in Phoenix, Arizona, to Harry Joshua Alphin and Bonnie Humphrey. Her father was a sound engineer, and due to his job the family moved to Los Angeles in 1929 where he started working for motion pictures studios. She had an younger sister, Harree Bonnie, born on March 10, 1931, and a younger brother, Harry Jr., born on August 27, 1935. Both of them were born in California.
Patricia grew up surrounded by movie people and wanted to become an actress from childhood. She attended and graduated from Burbank High School in 1944, and, as a true beauty, was active in the local pageant scene
in 1946 Patricia was crowned Queen of the Burbank Bethel of Job’s daughters.
As a Queen, Patricia had certain social obligations that she did with gusto:
Patricia Alphin Hostesses Tea Featuring the Easter theme In the table decorations, Patricia Alphin, honored queen of Burbank Jobs Daughters, hostessed a mother and daughter tea at her home, She was assisted by her mother, Mrs. Harry J. Alphin. At a tea table, beautifully appointed with a centerpiece of purple and white sweet peas, Diane Swagler. Nancy De Celle and Donna Bell poured. Approximately 100 attended the affair.
After graduation, via her dad, Pat started working as a messenger at Universal International studio. She worked in the mail room and zipped around the lot with tons of letters. Literary, she was a female mailman. It was in this room that she she was was “discovered” and signed to a contract.
After several years of hard work, and many disappointments, Pat got her first big film break. She was given the feminine lead in Abbott and Costello's The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap. But she was taken out of the role when she was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. This derailed her a bit, but as you know, you can’t keep a good girl down, and she was up and running once again, ready for big things!
And off she went!
Her first movie was Idea Girl. Her second movie appearance was in Tangier, another completely forgotten Maria Montez WW2 spy movie.Then came Night in Paradise. Not much better was the shallow, stripped-bare crime movie Inside Job, and Lover Come Back.
Patricia then appeared in the serial The Mysterious Mr. M. Her movies got a bit better afterwards (but she still was not credited, mind you). White Tie and Tails while they were away. Then came I’ll Be Yours.
Patricia would appear in movies with Yvonne de Carlo. Their first “collaboration” was Song of Scheherazade. Pat was then in the above average Abbot and Costello movie, Buck Privates Come Home. Patricia had a slightly bigger role in Time Out of Mind, the first US movie made by the British star Phyllis Calvert.
Luckily, Patricia’s next movie The Web. Something in the Wind, a typical Deanna Durbin movie (fluff!).
Perhaps the best movie on Patricia’s filmography is Letter from an Unknown Woman, an expertly made, magical but utterly devastating film, a deeply felt lament that manages to touch the viewers on a profound level. Pat then went on to more cheerful stuff with Up in Central Park, another Deanna Durbin movie but this time with more zest and spice. And it has Vincent Price in it!
Patricia scored another very good film noir with Larceny, a John Payne/Dan Dureya/Joan Caulfield movie. Pat then appeared in a mid tier Abbott and Costello movie, Mexican Hayride. Next she played a secretary in the very first Ma and Pa Kettle movie, Ma and Pa Kettle.
Up next was Johnny Stool Pigeon, a mid tier film noir with Howard Duff. Then came Yes Sir, That’s My Baby.
Pat’s last movie for Universal International was The Gal Who Took the West, her second Yvonne de Carlo feature. Expect a small uncredited role in 1980 (in The Return), that was it from Pat.
Patricia married her high school sweetheart, John W. Moorman, in a ceremony at 8 p.m. on June 28, 1949. The wedding was not without mishaps: Bonnie Alphin, Pat’s sister, lay on a stretcher as she served as bridesmaid because she was injured in an auto accident en route to the church. An ambulance took Bonnie from the scene of the crash to the church where and after the ceremony Bonnie was whisked to a hospital for X-rays of a back injury. Bonnie later recuperated fully.
A bit about the groom. John William Moorman was born in Los Angeles on December 28, 1926 to Paul Samuel Moorman and Aida Stephens. During the war he was an Air Corps member, and later attended Occidental College. The couple honeymooned in Mexico City.
The Moormans settled in Los Angeles had two children, a son, John Scott, born on May 14, 1951, and a daughter, Julie Kathleen, born on September 2, 1954. Little is known about their life, they continued living in Los Angeles, with Patricia long retired from movies.
Patricia and John divorced in September 1974. Moorman remarried to Marilynn Barber in 1976 and died on November 9, 1995.
Sadly, Scott Moorman, Pat’s son, died before his mother in unusual circumstances. He was a very gifted athlete and a Monroe High School running back. After get married, siring a son and getting divorced, he moved to Maui from Granada Hills in the mid 1970s and was an active sailor. In 1978, he went missing while on a fishing expedition, and his skeleton was found 10 years later on the Marshall Islands. It is possible that he lived like Robinson Crusoe on an deserted island for years. This is an incredibly intriguing but somber story.
Just saw her as the waitress in "Larceny" (1949). She was stunningly breath-taking.
ReplyDelete