Patricia Blair (born Patsy Lou Blake; January 15, 1933 – September 9, 2013) was an American television and film actress, primarily on 1950s and 1960s television. She is known for portraying American frontier woman Rebecca Boone (1739–1813), the wife of real Kentucky frontiersman Daniel Boone (1734–1820) in all six seasons of the 18th century colonial Western TV series Daniel Boone (1964–1970). She had appeared earlier in 22 episodes of The Rifleman (1962–1963).
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Biography
Patsy Lou Blake was born in Fort Worth, Texas and grew up further east in nearby Dallas. She became a teenage model through the Conover Modeling Agency of New York City (existed 1939-1959), of noted Harry Conover (1911-1965). While acting in summer stock, Warner Bros. discovered her and she began acting in films under the names Patricia Blake and Pat Blake. In the late 1950s she appeared as the second female lead in several films for Warner Bros. and later for MGM. Her first movie was Jump Into Hell (1955), about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in French Indochina.
She had a recurring role as Goldy, one of Madame Francine's hostesses, on the 1958 TV series Yancy Derringer. In 1962-1963 she starred as newly-arrived hotel operator "Lou Mallory" in the later seasons of the Western The Rifleman, (replacing general store keeper "Milly Scott", played by actress Joan Taylor) as North Fork, New Mexico Territory rancher "Lucas McCain" (star Chuck Connors)'s new occasional love interest on that long-running series.
