Patrick Holt

Patrick Holt
File:Patrick Holt.jpg
Born	(1912-01-31)31 January 1912 Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, UK
Died	London, England, UK
Other names	Patrick Parsons
Occupation	Film actor television actor
Years active	1938–1990
Spouse(s)	Sandra Dorne (1954–1992) (her death) Sonia Holm (1947–1953) (divorced)

Patrick Holt (31 January 1912 – 12 October 1993) was an English film and television actor.

Biography

Patrick Holt's real name was Patrick G. Parsons. Some of his childhood was spent in India with his uncle. Patrick was sent to Christ's Hospital, a famous charity school in Britain. He formed a close friendship with a boy in the same boarding house, the future film star Michael Wilding. There were those who thought Holt the better actor. He started his career in repertory theatres, and in 1939, landed a leading part on the London stage, but the Second World War broke out, and he joined the army. He saw service in Burma, Singapore and India, often on secret missions behind enemy lines, and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war, he joined the J. Arthur Rank charm school and steadily established himself as a leading actor in 1950s "second features." Quinlan has called him "the Dennis Price of the B film."

Holt maintained his status as a leading man in second features into the early 1960s, although he sometimes also played supporting roles or cameos. As late as 1962, he appeared in three films, all of which had him in a leading role. However, he was one of many leading men & women of the 1950s (the others including Kenneth More, Richard Todd, John Gregson, Michael Craig, Sylvia Syms and Muriel Pavlow) who struggled to maintain their status as leads beyond the early 1960s. From 1963 onwards, Holt never played another leading film role.

However, by evolving into a character actor, he sustained his career into old age, working on stage and television as well as in the cinema, and he was still listed in the Spotlight casting directory at the time of his death. His first wife was the actress Sonia Holm. In 1954, he married Sandra Dorne, with whom he had occasionally co-starred. The marriage was happy, and he is said never to have recovered from her death on Christmas Day, 1992.

Selected filmography

• Convoy (1940)
• Frieda (1947)
• The Mark of Cain (1947)
• Master of Bankdam (1947)
• The October Man (1947)
• When the Bough Breaks (1947)
• Portrait from Life (1948)
• Marry Me! (1949)
• Boys in Brown (1949)
• A Boy, a Girl and a Bike (1949)
• The Magic Box (1951)
• Ivanhoe (1952)
• Circumstancial Evidence (1952)
• John Wesley (1954)
• A Stranger Came Home (1954)
• The Golden Link (1954)
• The Men of Sherwood Forest (1954)
• The Dark Avenger (1955)
• Stolen Assignment (1955)
• Alias John Preston (1955)
• Miss Tulip Stays the Night (1955)
• The Gelignite Gang (1956)
• The Girl in the Picture (1957)
• Suspended Alibi (1957)
• Fortune Is a Woman (1957)
• There's Always a Thursday (1957)
• I Was Monty's Double (1958)
• Further Up the Creek (1958)
• Too Hot to Handle (1960)
• The Challenge (1960)
• Dentist on the Job (1961)
• The Frightened City (1961)
• Serena (1962)
• Flight from Singapore (1962)
• Girl in the Headlines (1963)
• Guns at Batasi (1964)
• Genghis Khan (1965)
• Thunderball (1965) - Group Captain Dawson (uncredited)
• The Fighting Prince of Donegal (1966)
• The Vulture (1967)
• Hammerhead (1968)
• The Desperados (1969)
• The Magic Christian (1969)
• Cromwell (1970)
• No Blade of Grass (1970)
• When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)
• Psychomania (1971)
• Young Winston (1972)
• Diamonds on Wheels (1974)
• Legend of the Werewolf (1975)
• The Amorous Milkman (1975)
• Let's Get Laid (1978)
• The Wild Geese (1978)
• The Sea Wolves (1980)
• Priest of Love (1981)
• The Whistle Blower (1987)
• Playing Away (1987)
• Strike It Rich (1990)

External links

• Patrick Holt at the Internet Movie Database