Biography
Pat Englund was born Patricia Julia Ripley on February 16, 1925 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Pat was an actress, known for her roles on Appointment with Adventure (1955), Kraft Theatre (1947-1956), The Day of the Dolphin (1973) and a TV movie Last Wish (1992)
Her mother was actress Mabel Albertson, best known for her role on Bewitched as Darren's interfering mother. Her uncle was Jack Albertson, best remembered as The Man in Chico and the Man with Freddie Prinze. (1974-1978)
Her birth father was Harold Austin "Rip" Ripley, a successful newspaper columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He was a former alcoholic and founder of "Guest House Treatment Centers" that solely treated alcoholic priests in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Mabel and Rip divorced in 1928. In 1933, Rip married Leone M Johannes and moved to Wisconsin.
In 1937, Mabel Albertson married Ken Englund, screenwriter best known for writing the scripts for No, No, Nanette (1940), This Thing Called Love (1940), and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947). He also wrote scripts for TV series like My Three Sons, Bewitched, and That Girl. When Rip relinquished his parental rights to the children, Ken Englund adopted Pat and her brother George in 1938.
Her brother was producer, director, and actor George Englund best known for producing The Streets of San Francisco (1979), The Eddie Fisher Show (1958), and The Vegas Strip War (1984). George was married to actress Cloris Leachman and they had five children.
In 1955, Pat married Dunham Barney Lefferts, an editor for The New York Times Sunday Magazine and later a freelance journalist. She became stepmother to his son Tom. In 1959, Pat gave birth to their son, Nicholas. Her husband died on January 4, 1976. Pat never remarried.
Pat made her Broadway debut in 1946 when she was the understudy to the ingenue in George Kelly's "The Fatal Weakness" starring Ina Claire. In 1948, she joined the cast of "Oklahoma" on Broadway in the role of Ado Annie, appearing again in the role at the Drury Lane Theater in London. In New York, she played Audrey in a Broadway production of "As You Like It" starring Katharine Hepburn. It was in this show that Pat met her future sister-in-law Cloris Leachman. In 1962, she played the role of April Monkhood on Broadway in S J Perelman's comedy "The Beauty Part" starring Bert Lahr. Her final Broadway role was in "Angel" a 1978 musical version of Thomas Wolfe's "Look Homeward, Angel."
Pat was a resident of Westport Connecticut for 50 years until 2013 when she moved to Santa Monica, California. She died there on January 6, 2018 at the age of 92.
