Biography
A Brown University graduate, he performed in at least part of every season at The Cleveland Play House for 20 years, also taking breaks for live television, films, and four national tours featuring his one-man shows. In 1967, he joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco—where Annette Bening, Denzel Washington, Benjamin Bratt, Harry Hamlin, and Winona Ryder trained—to portray James Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night. His major roles at A.C.T. include You Can't Take It With You, Jumpers, The Matchmaker (U.S.S.R. tour), All the Way Home (Japan tour), Buried Child, The Gin Game, Painting Churches, The Doctor's Dilemma, Saint Joan, Saturday-Sunday-Monday, The Cocktail Hour, Pygmalion, Home, Gaslight (Drama Logue Award), Mrs. Warren's Profession, and Mary Stuart. He earned Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for Best Supporting Actor for Saturday-Sunday-Monday and Pygmalion, and Best Principal Performance for The Cocktail Hour. In 1976, he appeared alongside Marc Singer and Fredi Olster in A.C.T.'s The Taming of the Shrew, directed by William Ball, both on stage and in a PBS Great Performances: Theater in America broadcast. Paterson portrayed Scrooge in the original A.C.T. production of A Christmas Carol, performing the role for 14 seasons. He served nine years on the San Francisco Arts Commission and two years as a trustee of The American Conservatory Theater Foundation. He lives in San Francisco.
