Patricia Richardson Biography

Fast Facts

• Born in Bethesda Naval Hospital, where her father was a test pilot; she grew up a "Navy brat" and moved numerous times throughout her childhood
• Classmates at SMU included Kathy Bates, Powers Booth, and playwrights Jack Heffner and Beth Henley; she later appeared in several productions of Heffner's Vanities and in Henley's 1982 Broadway play The Wake of Jamie Foster
• Made her Broadway debut in the 1974 revival of Gypsy, starring Angela Lansbury, in the roles of a waitress and a Hollywood blonde, and as understudy for the part of Louise
• Is a spokesperson for the battle against PSP (a brain disease, progressive supranuclear palsy), which claimed the life of her father