Patricia Hardy, a film and television actress in the 1950s who was married to actor Richard Egan for 30 years, died Aug. 20 in her Brentwood home in Los Angeles of colon cancer. She was 80.
Hardy, an Irish-American beauty who was crowned Miss Brooklyn, Miss Coney Island and Miss New York Press Photographer, performed with comedians Jimmy Durante and Danny Thomas at the famed Copacabana nightclub in New York City and once graced the cover of Look magazine.
After arriving in Los Angeles, she starred in such films as Girls in the Night (1953) and Don’t Knock the Rock (1956) and in such TV series as Schlitz Playhouse (in an installment opposite James Dean), The Loretta Young Show, Lassie, Mike Hammer, State Trooper and Perry Mason.
In 1956, Hardy met Egan (A Summer Place, The 300 Spartans), and they married in June 1958. Egan died in 1987.
Survivors include their children Patricia, Kathleen, Colleen, Richard Jr. (founder of independent record label Vagrant Records) and Maureen, a writer and director.
The family asks that donations can be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
