Robert Patrick Dies: ‘Kennedy’s Children’ Playwright And Off Off Broadway Pioneer Was 85
deadline.comRobert Patrick, a pioneering playwright in the Off Off Broadway movement who later won wider acclaim for the 1975 Broadway staging of his play Kennedy’s Children, died in his sleep at home in Los Angeles on Sunday, April 23.
He was 85. His death was announced by Jason Jenn, a longtime friend and associate. The Broadway production of Kennedy’s Children starred Shirley Knight, who won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, beating out a competitive roster that included Meryl Streep, Mary Beth Hurt and Lois Nettleton.
The play, which focused on a group of former 1960s activists reuniting and reminiscing in a Lower East Side bar, was adapted by Patrick for a 1982 TV movie that starred Knight, Jane Alexander, Lindsay Crouse and Brad Dourif, among others.
Robert Patrick O’Connor was born in Kilgore, Texas to migrant workers, later joining the Air Force for a stint cut short when a poem he wrote to a fellow serviceman was discovered.
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