Patsy R. Miller; Silent Film Star, Fiction Writer

Patsy Ruth Miller, silent film star who made more than 70 films during her decade on screen, appearing opposite such leading men as Rudolph Valentino and Lon Chaney, has died at the age of 91.

Miss Miller, who also enjoyed a successful career as a writer, died Sunday at her home in Palm Desert, according to Jeffrey Carrier, who assisted her with her 1988 autobiography “My Hollywood.”

Born Jan. 17, 1904, in St. Louis, Patricia Ruth Miller was 16 and vacationing with her family in Hollywood when she met film star Alla Nazimova at a party. Miss Miller so impressed the veteran actress that she won a part in the 1921 “Camille” starring Valentino.

Miss Miller is probably best remembered as Esmeralda, the Gypsy dancing girl cast opposite Chaney’s Quasimodo in the classic 1923 “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Her other films included “Broken Hearts of Hollywood” with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., “The White Black Sheep” with Richard Barthelmess and the Ernst Lubitsch farce “So This Is Paris” with Monte Blue, all in 1926, and a series of comedies with Edward Everett Horton.

She ended her film career in the early 1930s, except for a cameo in the 1951 “Quebec” starring John Barrymore Jr., which she said in her autobiography she did only as a joke.

Miss Miller switched to writing, earning three O. Henry awards for her short stories, and penning a novel, “That Flanagan Girl,” radio scripts and plays. She also appeared briefly on Broadway.

During her film career, Miss Miller was so frequently rumored to be engaged to well-known men that she was often called “the most engaged girl in Hollywood.” Comedian George Jessel once quipped: “My train ticket West included a stopover at the Grand Canyon and an engagement to Patsy Ruth Miller.”

Miss Miller was married three times, to film director Tay Garnett and screenwriter John Lee Mahin, both of whom she divorced, and to businessman E. S. Deans, who died in 1986.

She is survived by a son, Timothy Mahin, of Pound Ridge, N.Y.; two stepchildren, Robert Deans, of New Canaan, Conn., and Jean Deans, of Schaefer, Vt.; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.