Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#54664
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Lee Patrick works on quiet performance rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Lee Patrick appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lee. Vertigo is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, comedy, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Gordon, Alfred Hitchcock, Walter Lang and others, Lee Patrick helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Vertigo (1958) as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine · The Maltese Falcon (1941) as Effie Perine · Mildred Pierce (1945) as Maggie Biederhof
Career snapshot
Ranked #54664 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1941–1959
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
Vertigo
Average Nutevio score
7.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Vertigo
Most frequent director
Michael Gordon
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Michael Gordon
Most common genre
Romance
2 titles
Average runtime
1h 52m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.7
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1940s
7.3 average MV
The 1940s are where the work and the material meet. Mildred Pierce, The Maltese Falcon — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1940s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1940s
7.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1940s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Mildred Pierce, The Maltese Falcon.
Most productive era
1950s
3 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1940s | 1950s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.21 film | — |
| Thriller | 7.51 film | 8.11 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.52 films |
| Crime | 7.32 films | — |
| Romance | — | 7.42 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Effie Perine.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1958Vertigo
8.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
1959Pillow Talk
The current state of the argument, as Mrs. Walters.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
5 of 5 films
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
as Effie Perine
Directed by John Huston
as Maggie Biederhof
Directed by Michael Curtiz
as Mrs. Walters
Directed by Michael Gordon
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
Vertigo (1958)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine gives Lee Patrick a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Effie Perine
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Performance score7.6
The Maltese Falcon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Effie Perine is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Maggie Biederhof
Mildred Pierce (1945)
Performance score7.1
Mildred Pierce asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maggie Biederhof is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mrs. Walters
Pillow Talk (1959)
Performance score6.7
Pillow Talk asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mrs. Walters is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
Start here. Vertigo is the clearest statement of what Lee Patrick does — accessible, 128 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lee at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Keeps the mystery register of Vertigo but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mildred Pierce (1945)
Keeps the crime register of The Maltese Falcon but asks for a colder reading of it.
There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)
A deliberate change of key after Mildred Pierce — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Pillow Talk (1959)
Keeps the comedy register of There's No Business Like Show Business but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Huston
Director
1 film together
Notably The Maltese Falcon
Michael Curtiz
Director
1 film together
Notably Mildred Pierce
Walter Lang
Director
1 film together
Notably There's No Business Like Show Business
Alfred Hitchcock
Director
1 film together
Notably Vertigo
Michael Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Pillow Talk
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Alfred Hitchcock
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
VertigoJohn Huston
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Maltese FalconMichael Curtiz
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mildred PierceMichael Gordon
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pillow TalkWalter Lang
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
There's No Business Like Show BusinessSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Vertigo
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Vertigo
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Vertigo
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Vertigo
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Vertigo
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Lee Patrick has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Romance Legend
Awarded
2 catalogue titles in romance, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Vertigo
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Vertigo
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Vertigo
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Maltese Falcon
as Effie Perine
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Vertigo
as Car Owner Mistaken for Madeleine
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mildred Pierce
as Maggie Biederhof
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Mildred Pierce
as Maggie Biederhof
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
There's No Business Like Show Business
as Marge
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Zach Grenier
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Richmond Arquette
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Bob Stephenson
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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