Career
After her graduation from Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon, Virginia Patton started her short Hollywood career. She had a number of rather insignificant film appearances until she played her best-known role in the classic as Ruth Dakin Bailey, the wife of George Bailey"s younger brother Harry. Although lieutenant"s a Wonderful Life-director Frank Capra didn"t know Patton, she read the role for him and he signed her with a contract.
Patton later said that she was the only girl the famous director ever signed in his whole career.
She made only four films after lieutenant"s a Wonderful Life, including her first lead in the B-western. She is president of The Patton Corporation, an investment and real estate holdings company in Ann Arbor and is also involved in community work.
Patton still gives interviews about lieutenant"s a Wonderful Life. With the death of Argentina Brunetti in December 2005, Virginia Patton is the only credited adult actor in lieutenant"s a Wonderful Life still alive.