Joyce Benignia Van Patten (born March 9, 1934) is an American actress.
Personal life
Van Patten was born in New York City, the daughter of Josephine Rose (née Acerno) and Richard Byron Van Patten. Her mother was an Italian-American, and her father had distant Dutch ancestry from a great-grandfather.
She is the younger sister of actor Dick Van Patten, and aunt to actors Vincent Van Patten, James Van Patten and Nels Van Patten. She was formerly married to the late actor Martin Balsam, and is the mother of actress Talia Balsam, who was briefly married to actor George Clooney. She is divorced from actor-director Dennis Dugan, who has directed several films starring Adam Sandler.
Career
Van Patten has appeared in dozens of television series. She was a member of the original cast of the daytime drama As the World Turns.
She made her prime-time TV debut as a featured regular on The Danny Kaye Show, after which she co-starred with Bob Denver and Herb Edelman in the 1968-70 sitcom The Good Guys as Claudia Gramus, the long-suffering wife of diner owner Bert Gramus (played by Edelman).
Her countless guest appearances include Gunsmoke, The Untouchables, Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone, The Andy Griffith Show, The Rockford Files, Hawaii 5-0, The Bob Newhart Show, The Odd Couple and Law & Order.
She played Joyce, the fiance of Peter Sellers in the cult classic I Love You, Alice B. Toklas in 1968) which tells the story of Harold Fine, a self-described "square" lawyer, falls for an attractive flower power hippie girl (played by Leigh Taylor-Young) who has a knack for making pot brownies (hence the title of the film). Harold ends up running out of his wedding to live with the hippie girl and attempts to find himself as well with the aid of a guru (or does he?).
On a 1976 episode of Columbo Van Patten had a leading role as a museum owner and curator who commits murder. In 1979, she appeared opposite Mary Tyler Moore in CBS's The Mary Tyler Moore Hour as Iris Chapman, secretary and assistant to Moore's Mary McKinnon character.
In 1995, she played Maureen, Jennie's mother for two seasons on the WB sit-com Unhappily Ever After.
Her last series role to date came as Carol Prudy on two episodes of the ABC Network comedy/drama Desperate Housewives.
Van Patten has had supporting roles in many films, among them the head of the Little League in the original Bad News Bears.
She also has appeared often on Broadway, in shows including Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs," "Rumors" and "Rabbit Hole."
She has usually been astringent in her screen roles, except when she played Maude Pomfritt, schoolteacher Leander Pomfritt (played by William Schallert)'s treacly wife on the late 1950s/early 1960s TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.
External links
Joyce Van Patten at the Internet Movie Database
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Van_Patten"
Categories: 1934 births | American film actors | American stage actors | American television actors | Italian-Americans | Living people | New York actors | People from Queens
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This page was last modified on 18 August 2008, at 05:28.
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