Sunday, August 30, 2015

Melody Pattersn

I pretty much quit writing about the news a long time ago.  The bloggers on my blogroll do a better job of it so why bother?   I've seen quite a few bloggers lamenting the passing of Yvonne Craig but, if any that I read on a regular basis noticed the passing of Melody Patterson on August 20,  I must have missed the innerweb that day. 

I know that green lives matter and all but I would have thought that Melody, a/k/a F Troop's  "Wrangler Jane," would have gotten some mention if only alongside Bat Girl - related posts.

I still don't understand why so many people went nuts when Elvis died.   People got all syrupy over Robin Williams not too long ago.    I never knew either of them.    Heck, the closest I ever got to even meeting a real live celebrity was doing some work for a woman with the same name as Barbara Eden's sister.   I didn't know Barbara Eden's sister's name until several years later so I had no reason to ask the women if she was related.   I will probably never know.   The sister has distinctive first and last names that I recognized when I saw her on a Bio Channel show about Barbara Eden.  She has the same first and last names as the woman that I had met and she sure looked like the woman I had met several years before but seriously;  How the heck would I know?  Even so, that's closer than I ever got to knowing Elvis or Mork.  I'll bet its closer than most of the people that got upset over their deaths ever got too. 

 I liked Donna Douglas but I saw her passing recognized on blogs that I read so I didn't see any reason to chime in.   I obviously like Barbara Eden but its not a blond thing.  I always liked Mary Ann better than Ginger, no matter whether Ginger was a blond or  a redhead in the specific episode.  Never was a big fan of Elizabeth Montgomery either.   Nope.   I liked Melody Patterson because Wrangler Jane was a different type of girl.



In F Troop, she ran her own store and could out ride and out shoot any man in town.   




Some folks called her character Tomboyish but I never saw it that way.  She always came across to me as self-reliant, capable and confident.    There weren't nuthin' boyish, by the name of Tom or any other, about Wrangler Jane. 

To any kid with a cowboy hat and two capguns (mine were in genuine tooled leather holsters), she was a dream.




Depending on what source you believe, Melody was only fifteen or sixteen years old when she won the Wrangler Jane role.   They filmed F Troop's pilot episode while she was on Christmas Vacation from school.   Supposedly, the producers didn't find out she wasn't eighteen until the show was already on the air.  

After F Troop, Melody had a few roles in other TV shows, entertained the troops in Vietnam  and was married to "Danno" for five years but its Wrangler Jane that I'll always remember.

I have not been able to find out what took her at such a young age. Just that she had not really recovered from breaking her back a couple of years ago and died in a nursing home of multiple organ failure.    A tragic end for such an outgoing person.

Rest In Peace Melody.  






1 comment:

  1. The first I heard of her passing.
    RIP, she was a sweety!

    ReplyDelete