Pat Sheehan Bio
Pat Sheehan was an American actress, glamour and nude model. Born Patricia Ann Sheehan on September 7, 1931, in San Francisco, California, she has also been credited as Patricia Sheehan Crosby. Playboy named her its October 1958 Playmate at 27. Her appearance dates from the magazine's formative 1950s, when the Playmate format was still taking shape.
Sheehan had natural breasts, blue eyes and blond hair. Her measurements are 34-22-34.
Pat Sheehan had already moved through several layers of mid-century show business before Playboy entered the picture. She first drew attention in Bay Area pageants, winning Miss Milkmaid in 1949 and Miss San Francisco the following year before placing sixth in the 1951 Miss California competition. Modeling assignments followed, along with appearances on Queen for a Day and The Colgate Comedy Hour. By the middle of the decade, Sheehan had become one of the Goldwyn Girls and was working steadily enough to move between magazine shoots, television studios and Hollywood soundstages.
Howard Hughes helped push that screen career forward, signing her for The French Line and Son of Sinbad. She also appeared in films including The Adventures of Hajji Baba, Daddy Long Legs, Kismet and Man with the Gun. In 1956 NBC placed her under contract, and she worked on The NBC Comedy Hour, The Milton Berle Show, Texaco Star Theater and The Chevy Show. During that period Agnes Moorehead coached her acting and Meredith Willson worked with her vocally, giving Sheehan more serious preparation than the “blonde beauty” publicity around her might suggest.
Sam Wu photographed her Playboy centerfold, and the October issue paired her with fellow Playmate Mara Corday. It was an unusual shared-month arrangement and reflected how deeply both women were already embedded in Hollywood glamour culture. Sheehan’s centerfold later resurfaced on screen in Space Cowboys, giving the photograph an unexpected afterlife more than four decades after its original publication.
Her private life was equally connected to entertainment circles. Sheehan dated prominent figures including Frank Sinatra and Rod Taylor and was at one point courted by Bing Crosby. In 1958, however, she married Crosby’s son Dennis at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, where she had also worked as a showgirl. The marriage produced two sons, and Dennis adopted her child from an earlier marriage before the couple eventually divorced in 1964.
Sheehan’s last film appearance came in Gigi in 1958, after which her public profile gradually receded. In later years she worked for Gucci and remained connected to her Hollywood past through interviews and archival interest. She died of a heart attack in Beverly Hills in 2006 after previously surviving cancer. What remains is a particularly rich 1950s career: beauty pageants, live television, studio films, nightclub glamour and Playboy, all intersecting before that world began to change.
