Luana Patten


Luana Patten was an American film actress.

Early years

Patten was born in Long Beach, California, to Harvey T. Patten and Alma Patten, natives of Enid, Oklahoma. She attended Burbank High School and Hollywood Professional School.

Career

At the age of three she was a young model and later was hired by Walt Disney. Patten made her first film appearance in the 1946 musical Song of the South with Bobby Driscoll. They also appeared together in Song of the Souths sister film So Dear to My Heart.
She appeared again with Bobby Driscoll in the Pecos Bill segment of Disney's Melody Time. In 1947, she appeared with Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, and Mortimer Snerd during the live action scenes in Fun and Fancy Free. When she grew up, she played the role of Jody Weaver in Joe Dakota, she played the role of Priscilla Lapham in Disney's 1957 live-action feature production of Johnny Tremain. In 1958, Patten played the part of Elizabeth Buckley in the episode "Twelve Guns" of NBC's Cimarron City western television series. It was on Cimarron City that she met her future second husband, John Smith, whom she married two years later. The couple divorced in 1964.
In 1959, she played "Abbie Fenton" in the episode "Call Your Shot" of ', starring Steve McQueen and the same year played "Ruth" in "The Ruth Marshall Story" season 3, episode 13 of Wagon Train that aired Dec 30, 1959. In 1960, she played "Libby Halstead" in Vincente Minnelli's Home from the Hill. In 1966, she played a saloon girl named "Lorna Medford" in the episode "Credit for a Kill" of Bonanza. In 1966, she had a small part as Nora White, the new bride of the reformed "Whitey" played by Kurt Russell, in Follow Me, Boys!. She also appeared in Fun and Fancy Free, A Thunder of Drums, and the Rawhide episode "Incident of the Druid Curse" on CBS. That year she also appeared on Perry Mason as defendant Cynthia Perkins in "The Case of the Scarlet Scandal". She retired from the film industry in 1968 except for a brief cameo in the 1988 film Grotesque''.

Death

Patten died from respiratory failure at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, aged 57. She is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Long Beach, California.

Filmography