Pat Silver-Lasky

Barbara Hayden, usually known professionally as Pat Silver or Pat Silver-Lasky, is an American actress, screenwriter, and writer, mostly known for her collaborations with her second husband, Jesse Lasky Jr.

Beginnings

Born in Seattle, Washington, Silver-Lasky attended the University of Washington as a drama major, as well as Stanford University and Reed College. Silver-Lasky worked in films and TV under her birth name, Barbara Hayden. When she played the lead in an episode of Rescue 8 and went on to write three more episodes, she took the pen name Pat Silver.

Collaborations with Jesse L. Lasky Jr.

Silver-Lasky wrote four books with her second husband, Jesse, including the best-selling historical novel The Offer, eight films, nearly 100 TV scripts, including the award-winning "Explorers" series ("Ten Who Dared" in the United States). Their verse play Ghost Town won several awards in the U.S. In 1984 and 1986, their TV series Philip Marlowe, Private Eye won three awards in the USA and in the Netherlands.

In 1987, Pat and Jesse wrote the play Vivien based on their book Love Scene, the story of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Pat directed its highly acclaimed first production at the Melrose Theatre in Los Angeles (1987) and directed the London rehearsed reading of Viven in 1992.

Solo work

Silver-Lasky produced, wrote, directed, and acted in the first live TV drama series from Hollywood, Mabel's Fables, for KTLA (Paramount Pictures), which received an Emmy nomination. She also appeared in feature roles in films, played leading and co-starring roles on television, and directed for the theater in Los Angeles and Palm Springs.

As an ASCAP writer, she wrote lyrics for 14 published and recorded songs, including "While You're Young" for Johnny Mathis's album Portrait of Johnny. She wrote the lyrics for two films at Columbia Studios.

Silver-Lasky served as a story editor on the second Marlowe series (see credits). Silver-Lasky has written articles and interviews, contributed to various British antique journals and written short stories for international magazines, including a 1999 series of romantic short stories for A World of Romance.

Silver-Lasky has lectured on script writing at several American universities, and was script consultant and guest lecturer at the London International Film School for eight years until 1999.

Personal life

In 1946, Silver-Lasky married the composer, singer, and guitarist Tony Romano, with whom she has a son, producer, arranger, and guitarist Richard Niles, and a daughter, Lisa Hayden Miller, a singer, restaurateur, chef and cookbook writer, author of Galley Guru. In 1959, she married Hollywood screenwriter and author Jesse L. Lasky Jr., son of the film pioneer Jesse Lasky. Jesse Lasky Jr. died in 1988. In 1995, Silver-Lasky met British cartoonist Peter Betts, known as Peeby, and they married in 1997. They lived in London but moved to Orange County, California, in 2009.

Credits

As an actress

• "The Crimson Kimono" (1959) — Mother
• "Have Gun – Will Travel" episode "The Man Who Lost" (1959) — Mrs. Bryson
• "Rescue 8" episode "Find That Bomb!" (1958) — Kit Shocky
• "A Perilous Journey" (1953) — Cathy
• "The Loves of Carmen" (1948) (uncredited) — Woman on Stagecoach

Books

• Ride the Tiger
• A Star Called Wormwood
• The Offer
• Screenwriting for the 21st Century
• Men of Mystery
• Dark Dimensions
• Love Scene
• The Offer

Theater productions

• Ghost Town
• Gehenna of the Bone (London)
• Vivien

Feature films

• The Wizard of Baghdad (1960)
• 7 Women from Hell (1961)
• Pirates of Tortuga (1961)
• Land Raiders (1970)
• Ace Up My Sleeve (1976)
• The Bulldance (1989)

Television series

• Mabel's Fables
• Shannon
• Paladin
• The New Breed
• The Saint
• The Baron
• Danger Man
• The Avengers
• The Protectors
• BBC Musical Specials
• Space: 1999
• The Swinging Scene
• Ben Hall
• The World of Lowell Thomas
• The Explorers
• Philip Marlowe, Private Eye
• Love at First Sight