He moved to the UK, where he specialised in playing virile American types in British films. He appeared in a number of films during the 1950s and 1960s, including The Good Die Young, Above Us the Waves, Reach for the Sky, The Key Man, Time Lock "The Golden Record", Jack the Ripper and The 3 Worlds of Gulliver. He returned to the UK to appear in the play version of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial at The Queen's Theatre in 1985.
American TV
After moving to the United States in the early 1960s, Patterson worked mainly in television. In 1960, he was cast in two episodes of the ABC/Warner Brothers western television series The Alaskans, starring Roger Moore. Patterson played Tom Kirk in the episode "Behind the Moon" and Jeff Warren in "Sign of the Kodiak", a reference to the Kodiak bear. Later that year, he was cast as the fictional detective Dave Thorne in another ABC/WB series, Surfside 6, set on a houseboat anchored at Miami Beach, Florida, which co-starred Van Williams, Troy Donahue, Diane McBain and Margarita Sierra. He also appeared in 1965 on the fourth season of Combat! as an O.S.S Officer, Captain Howard in the episode "9 Place Vendee". Early in 1966, Patterson appeared as Dan Thorne in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Midnight Howler".
Later career
Patterson was one of the handful of prime time and film performers to appear in daytime serials prior to 1970. His first soap opera role was that of Brad Kiernan in ABC's The Nurses. After that show was cancelled in 1967, he joined the original cast of One Life to Live, a move that reunited him with Doris Quinlan, the producer of The Nurses. Patterson remained in One Life to Live until 1970, when his character Joe Riley was presumed dead; he returned to the show in 1972 and remained the romantic lead until 1979, when he left due to his unhappiness with the direction the show took after Doris Quinlan left to produce NBC's troubled serial The Doctors. Patterson then joined the cast of NBC's Another World and Texas in the role of Dr. Kevin Cooke. The character began in Another World, but moved to Texas when that show began on August 4, 1980. He stayed until 1981, when the show was revamped to bring up its poor ratings against the number-one daytime program, ABC's General Hospital. Texas was cancelled in 1982. Patterson returned to One Life to Live as Joe's twin brother, Tom Dennison, from 1986 until 1988. He also continued to make appearances in other television shows such as War and Remembrance, Magnum, P.I. and The A-Team, and appeared in movies including Chato's Land and . His last role was Sergeant Gaylor in the 1994 film Healer.
