Career Highlights: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, First Auto, Lonely Wives
First Major Screen Credit: Fighting Streak (1922)
Biography
Patsy Ruth Miller was a leading actress in over 70 Hollywood silent and early talking films. She began her career at age 16 as a supporting actress in the Rudolph Valentino vehicle Camille (1921) after she was discovered by star Alla Nazimova during a family vacation to Hollywood. Though she was adequate for her roles, Miller was never considered a major star. Her most famous role was that of the gypsy Esmerelda, played opposite Lon Chaney's hunchback in the classic Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). She retired from films in 1931, and went on to become a script writer for radio shows and a short story writer. Her short stories garnered her three O. Henry awards. Miller also penned a novel, The Flanagan Girl (1939), and the libretto for a Broadway musical biography of Tchaikovsky, Music in My Heart. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Patsy Ruth Miller (January 17, 1904 – July 16, 1995) was an American film actress.
After being discovered by the actress Alla Nazimova at a Hollywood party, Patsy Ruth Miller got her first break with a small role in Camille, which starred Rudolph Valentino. Her roles gradually improved, and she was chosen as a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1922.
In the later part of the decade Miller appeared chiefly in light romantic comedies, opposite such actors as Clive Brook and Edward Everett Horton. Among her film credits in the late 1920s are Broken Hearts of Hollywood (1926), A Hero for a Night (1927), Hot Heels (1928), and The Aviator (1929).
She retired from films in 1931. She made a cameo appearance in the 1951 film, Quebec, which starred John Barrymore Jr., and stated in her autobiography that she had participated as a joke. She came out of retirement to do the film Mother in 1978.
She later achieved recognition as a writer. She won three O. Henry Awards for her short stories, wrote a novel, radio scripts, and plays. She also performed for a brief time on Broadway.
Miller was married three times, the first two ended in divorce. Her first husband was film director Tay Garnett and the second was screenwriter John Lee Mahin. Her third husband, businessman E.S. Deans, died in 1986. The frequent news about her love life once earned Miller the sobriquet the most engaged girl in Hollywood.