{"id":3804,"date":"2016-07-11T18:16:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T18:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixtiescinema.com\/?p=3804"},"modified":"2016-07-11T18:16:40","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T18:16:40","slug":"happy-birthday-bart-patton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/11\/happy-birthday-bart-patton\/","title":{"rendered":"HAPPY BIRTHDAY BART PATTON!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"abart\"<\/a>Happy Birthday to actor-turned-producer Bart Patton.\u00a0Tall and lanky, handsome Bart Patton played a surfing college boy on vacation in Waikiki in Gidget Goes Hawaiian<\/em> but it is his work behind the camera that he is best remembered for.\u00a0 An association with Roger Corman led the actor to become a twenty-four old producer of the beach-party movies, Beach Ball<\/em> (1965), Wild Wild Winter<\/em> (1966), and Out of Sight<\/em> (1966).<\/p>\n

At age ten, Bart played Scampy the Clown for four years on the ABC children\u2019s program, Super Circus<\/em>. While attending UCLA in the late fifties he met his future wife, pretty blonde actress Mary Mitchel, and became close friends with an aspiring filmmaker named Francis Coppola.\u00a0Patton made his film debut playing a high school student in Because They\u2019re Young<\/em> (1960), which began his four-year relationship with Columbia Pictures though he never signed a contract.\u00a0He would go on to work for the studio in Strangers When We Meet<\/em> (1960) before joining Joby Baker and Don Edmonds as partying college boys in Gidget Goes Hawaiian<\/em> (1961) starring Deborah Walley in the title role.\u00a0Bart also began working on TV and guest starred on such varied series as 77 Sunset Strip<\/em>, Father Knows Best<\/em>, Thriller<\/em> and General Electric Theatre<\/em>.\u00a0 His next film role was as an ax murderer in Dementia 13<\/em> (1963) directed by Francis Coppola.\u00a0 This eerie black-and-white horror movie is set in an Irish castle also starred William Campbell, Luana Anders, Mary Mitchel, and Patrick Magee. It was on Dementia 13<\/em> where Bart Patton began to get involved with the production side of making movies.\u00a0Producer Roger Corman was impressed with the young man\u00a0and he began working as a production manager for his company. He helped put the cult horror movie Spider Baby<\/em> (1964) together before Corman offered him a chance to produce Beach Ball<\/em> (1965) one of the most blatant and successful knockoffs of AIP\u2019s Beach Party<\/em>. This began his short partnership with director Lennie Weinrib. The success of Beach Ball<\/em> landed the duo a seven-year contract at Universal Pictures. The studio was late into getting in on the beach movie craze and hired them. First up was Wild Wild Winter<\/em> (1965), a beach party in the snow starring Gary Clarke and Chris Noel, and then the combination beach and spy spoof Out of Sight<\/em> (1966) with Jonathan Daly and Karen Jensen.<\/p>\n

In between producing assignments Patton continued accepting roles on such TV sitcoms as Petticoat Junction<\/em> and Hank<\/em>. At Universal, he and Weinrib had a number of projects in development\u00a0but were let go before any could come to fruition.\u00a0Bart Patton went on to produce the trouble-laden production The Rain People<\/em> (1969) directed by his friend Francis Coppola. The movie starred Shirley Knight as a pregnant Long Island housewife who abandons her husband and hits the road and picks up hitchhiker James Caan as a mentally challenged former football star. \u00a0Frustrated with film making,\u00a0Patton began making commercials for John Urie & Associates.\u00a0The one later film that Patton produced was The Further Adventures of the Wilderness Family <\/em>(1978) starring Robert Logan of Beach<\/em> Ball<\/em>.\u00a0 Patton also began working steadily as an assistant director on a number of projects.<\/p>\n

You can read anecdotes from Bart Patton about his beach movies and career in my book Hollywood Surf & Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969<\/a><\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n