Alfred Hitchcock’s only child, Patricia has died at 93.
Gatekeepers News reports that Patricia Hitchcock O’Connell, who made a memorable appearance in her father’s (Alfred Hitchcock) “Strangers on a Train” has died at 93.
Patricia who is also an actor herself championed her father’s work in the decades following his death.
One of her daughters, Tere Carrubba said she died in her sleep at her home in Thousand Oaks, California.
Carrubba who is one of Patricia Hitchcock’s three daughters said, “She was always really good at protecting the legacy of my grandparents and making sure they were always remembered.”
She added that “It’s sort of an end of an era now that they’re all gone.”
Pat Hitchcock was born in London to Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville Hitchcock in 1928 and spent much of her life in and around the family business. During her childhood, she watched her father directs classics such as “The 39 Steps,” “The Lady Vanishes” and “Shadow of a Doubt.”
Her father moved to California after signing a multipicture deal with producer David O. Selznick and rose to global fame as the “Master of Suspense.” Her mother was his indispensable adviser, a former film editor through whom he vetted story ideas and screenplay treatments.
In 1999, Pat Hitchcock told The Guardian, “My mother had much more to do with the films than she has ever been given credit for — he depended on her for everything, absolutely everything.”
During an interview for a 1997 BBC special on her father, she said of her character, “I think he was using her as the audience. I think he was having her go through what the audience went through.”
She was a lively, witty actor with a heart-shaped face and her other acting credits included the TV sitcoms “My Little Margie” and “The Life of Riley” and several roles in the TV series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.”
More recently, she appeared at numerous film festivals, Hitchcock documentaries, and contributed photographs as she worked for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
She was also a co-author of a book on her mother, who died in 1982, “Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man.” (Alfred Hitchcock died in 1980).
Pat Hitchcock had three children with her husband, Joseph O’Connell who she married for more than 40 years. Joseph O’Connell died in 1994.
