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Pat Crowley, an actress of Hollywood’s golden age who appeared alongside some of the biggest names of the 1950s before finding long-lasting success on television, died on Sunday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 91.
Her death was confirmed by her son, Jon Hookstratten, who is the executive vice president of administration and operations at Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Ms. Crowley first appeared on television and Broadway straight out of high school, and with her charisma, warmth and energy, was soon on course to become a leading actress of the era.
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Her Hollywood introduction came with the release of two Paramount films, including “Money From Home” (1953), her first of two Martin and Lewis comedies. She played the veterinarian love interest of Jerry Lewis’s character, an offbeat cousin of a gambler played by Dean Martin. (It also marked the beginning of a decades-long professional relationship with Mr. Martin, whose variety show would host her as a guest.)
In “Forever Female” (1954), a theater industry comedy written by the brothers Julius and Philip Epstein that was loosely adapted from J.M. Barrie’s play “Rosalind,” she played a spirited teenager aiming for a role desired by a fading star (Ginger Rogers), who eventually comes to terms with taking the part of the mother. William Holden and Paul Douglas also starred.
For both performances, Ms. Crowley won a Golden Globe in 1954 as “new star of the year” (a category that was discontinued in the 1980s).
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Often promoted as the ingénue, Ms. Crowley continued starring alongside some of the biggest names of the day. She appeared with Rosemary Clooney in the western musical spoof “Red Garters” (1954) and with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in Douglas Sirk’s noir-inspired film “There’s Always Tomorrow” (1956). In “The Square Jungle” (1955), she starred opposite Tony Curtis, playing the love interest of his character, a grocery clerk trying to make it as a boxer.
But she never reached the level of stardom anticipated by Paramount, and she was let go from the studio for unspecified reasons. She continued to act, but her career shifted mostly to television.
“The business of this business is really tricky, and I was never really into that,” Ms. Crowley said in an interview for this obituary in 2020. “I never had a manager. I never had a publicity person. I was in that medium thing where I would have an agent call and say, ‘Go and do this audition.’”
Her success on the small screen, largely in guest-starring roles, would endure for several decades. Her role as the ex-wife of a captain in the military drama “The Lieutenant” (1963) impressed her co-star Robert Vaughn so much that he picked her to play a Midwestern housewife thrust into the glamorous world of espionage in the pilot episode of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” (1964), which included a memorable scene of the two lead characters, drenched from sweat and steam, locked in a boiler room and suspended from a pipe.
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Her career received a lift in 1965 with “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies,” a family sitcom adapted from the book by Jean Kerr. She starred as Joan Nash, a newspaper columnist in a household with four boys, a sheepdog and a college professor husband. Ms. Crowley identified with Ms. Kerr, who loosely based the main character on herself; they were both from northeast Pennsylvania.
Patricia Margaret Crowley was born on Sept. 17, 1933, in Olyphant, Pa., the younger of two daughters of Vincent and Helen (Swartz) Crowley. Her father was a foreman in the coal mines. Her mother was a homemaker who loved music and theater.
As a teenager, Pat’s sister, Ann, was discovered by Frank La Forge, a prominent pianist and vocal coach, after singing at a local men’s luncheon where he was also performing. He said he would train her in New York, and Ann left for the city with her mother. The next year, the other half of the family followed and moved into an apartment in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan.
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In a touring performance of “Carousel,” in which her sister starred, the young Ms. Crowley had a walk-on part in the chorus. She continued to act, sing and dance, graduating from Manhattan’s High School of Performing Arts in 1950 in the same class as the comic actor Dom DeLuise.
After high school, Ms. Crowley took part in several theater productions, drawing praise for her performances even in mediocre reviews of the shows themselves. (In a review of Margo Jones’s “Southern Exposure,” Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times called her “practically the only professional thing on the stage”). She was honored with a Theater World Award as one of the most promising personalities of the 1950-51 season, and also gained recognition as the title character in “A Date With Judy,” a live television show in the early 1950s that aired on Saturday mornings in New York.
In 1957, Ms. Crowley married Ed Hookstratten, who would become a prolific entertainment lawyer and agent. They had two children, and separated in the early ’80s. She married Andy Friendly, a television executive, in 1986.
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In addition to her son, Ms. Crowley is survived by her husband; a daughter, Ann Osher; five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Throughout her career, Ms. Crowley landed guest roles in an array of shows spanning decades and genres, including “Columbo” in 1971; “Happy Days” in 1980; “Police Story,” also in 1980; “Beverly Hills, 90210” in 1997-98; and “Friends” in 1998. She also had recurring roles on soap operas, including “Dynasty,” “Generations,” “Port Charles” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.”
She returned to film for her final role, in 2012, in the indie romance “Mont Rêve.”
“I didn’t really have the face for film, like when you see the great beauties,” she said, reflecting on the early days of her career. “I always played the feisty little troublemaker.”
Ash Wu contributed reporting.
Will Dudding is a staff editor.
