SEVERAL members of Bradford’s pantomime Sunbeams - the junior dance troupe established by theatre impressario and Alhambra founder Francis Laidler - went on to enjoy a professional career in entertainment.

But only one made it in Hollywood. That was Pat Paterson, the Frizinghall girl who appeared in films in the 1930s and 40s, starring alongside Hollywood heavyweights such as Spencer Tracy.

Last week we featured a scrapbook of cuttings charting Pat’s rise to fame, which had been lovingly created by her mother. The newspaper and magazine clippings, now over 80 years old, include glamorous photographs of Pat on and off screen, and her husband, French actor Charles Boyer.

Mandy Oates contacted us to say that her husband, Alan Hall, came across the scrapbook in 2017 when he met Pat’s brother, Andy Paterson. Andy, who was then 97, wanted its contents preserved and helped Alan to turn it into a booklet.

Last week we ran an excerpt from the booklet, looking at Pat’s journey from child model to Hollywood star. Somewhere in between, she worked in the offices of Lister’s Mill as a trainee typist.

By 1931 she’d moved to London and made her first three films in the UK. Hollywood took an interest when Pat starred in Murder on the Second Floor and she landed a contract with 20th Century Fox. Before leaving for Hollywood, she attended a farewell party in Bradford and was invited to a performance of A Lass from Lister’s, said to be inspired by her success story and staged by the Manningham mill’s dramatic society.

In 1934 Pat met Charles Boyer at a party. Dashing French heart-throb Boyer became one of the most popular leading men in Hollywood, starring alongside A-list actresses such as Katharine Hepburn. Pat and Charles had a whirlwind romance and were married within weeks. They were to remain together for 40 years, but their fairytale Hollywood romance was ultimately a tragic one.

Here’s our final instalment of Alan Hall’s booklet about Pat Paterson’s career and marriage:

As the 1930s progressed Boyer became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. When the Second World War broke out he helped the Allied war effort and eventually took American citizenship.

Whilst her husband’s career went from strength to strength in the 1930s, Pat also starred in several films, notably Bottoms Up (1934) opposite Spencer Tracy, and Charlie Chan in Egypt (1935) with Warner Oland. But by 1939 she had ceased making films, having declared that she was going to settle down “as plain Mrs Boyer.” Her last appearance was in a minor role in 1939 film Idiot’s Delight, starring Clark Gable and Norma Shearer. Many of the press cuttings in the scrapbook for these years are about Pat’s marriage to Boyer and about his career as well as her own.

In December 1943 Pat gave birth to the couple’s only child, Michael Charles Boyer. He visited Bradford with his mother in November 1954, and much was made of this by the local press. Pat told reporters that it was “quite exciting” to see her two brothers, both now married, and a nephew. Charles Boyer does not appear to have accompanied his wife and son on that visit. Neither is it certain if he accompanied Pat when she visited Bradford once again in the early 1960s.

In 1965 tragedy struck. On September 23 that year, at his home in Cold Water Canyon, Los Angeles, Michael, aged 21, shot himself. His girlfriend wanted to end their relationship, and Michael was distraught. It is likely that he died by suicide, though there is a remote chance that this was not entirely a deliberate shooting, as he had apparently been playing Russian Roulette earlier that evening.

Boyer continued to make films, his final one being A Matter of Time (1976). In the 1970s Pat was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Boyer looked after her during her last months and she died in Phoenix Arizona on August 24, 1978 (August 26, according to some accounts). She was 68.

Two days later Charles Boyer took an overdose of Seconal and died. He was two days short of his 78th birthday.

The two of them are buried next to each other at Holycross Cemetery, Culver City, California.

Michael’s death and the deaths of Charles Boyer and Pat Paterson are understandably not detailed in the scrapbook, but it is necessary to mention them here in order to get a fuller picture of Pat’s life and career. Fame and fortune came to her early in life and the scrapbook highlights her rise from a comparatively modest beginning to becoming a movie actress in Hollywood.

But perhaps her major claim to fame lies not in the films she made. Much of her fame came via her marriage to a Hollywood megastar - Charles Boyer. If she had not been Boyer’s wife, and if the two of them had not stayed together for over 40 years, she may not have been so remembered by people.

It is hoped that this facsimile of the scrapbook, kept by a proud younger brother, will be a source of pleasure and information to anybody who has an interest in cinema and in people whose roots are in Bradford.