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Milwaukee Sentinel (23/Apr/1965) - World of Women: Patricia Cutts

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World of Women: Patricia Cutts

Patricia Cutts, actress on tour, is carrying more than 20 pairs of shoes around the country in her wardrobe trunk. In fact, she has shoes she hasn't even worn yet.

Miss Cutts plays the role of Dorothy Cleves in "Any Wednesday" which will be at the Pabst theater through Saturday.

Before the tour began she went to an Italian shop in New York and invested more than $300 in shoes. "Actually I thought it was rather economical. I planned to make them last for a year."

She also bought two pairs of shoes at $55 a pair for her "Any Wednesday" role as the wife of a tax dodging tycoon. "The producer nearly died at the bill." she said, but she held to her conviction that Dorothy Cleves would wear costly shoes.

Miss Cutts duplicated one pair of Dorothy Cleves' shoes in her own personal wardrobe. In the flurry of packing in Louisville, she left half of her own pair at the Brown hotel. She has written to the Brown management for one black shoe, but "if they don't send it, there's going to be a mysterious thing happen at the end of this play. One of Dorothy Cleves' shoes is going to mysteriously disappear." Her tone was light, her meaning unmistakable.

She bought leather, alligator and even black silk shoes. The black silk slippers with silver straps and heels are the ones she has not worn. "I don't know when I'm ever going to wear them," she said. "I keep crooning over them wrapped up in their paper."

She's written to David Kidd, New York designer, for a black cocktail dress, just the kind for the black and silver shoes to accent.

"I've got a shoe thing," she explained, "because when I was poor, I wore newspapers stuffed in the bottom. No, it wasn't in childhood. As a child I was rather rich. Poverty came during adolescence."

Patricia is a daughter of the late Graham Cutts, British film director. Her mother was an actress. Her home was London. She attended 13 different schools —and ran away from home (several times) at the age of 14 to pursue a career in the theater. To survive she also worked in a post office and in a chemist's shop.

Ten years ago she arrived in America at the age of 23 with exactly $2. Later, when she went to California, she arrived there with $1. Now she's becoming an American citizen. She has made three movies, countless TV shows and stage appearances on and off Broadway. "What I really want to do is a season at the Tyrone Guthrie theater in Minneapolis," she said.

The current tour of "Any Wednesday" will end in fall with five weeks in Central City, Col.

Miss Cutts has decided it's not practical to travel with an outsize wardrobe trunk full of shoes and clothing.

"Actually, four dresses, two topcoats and a raincoat would be enough to carry along on a tour," she believes. From this vantage point she thinks that she could get all of her tour needs into one suitcase. Patricia doesn't save her

reviews, although her father, during his life, kept a press book for her. One of her favorite stories about reviewers concerns the Chicago Tribune's Claudia Cassidy. Miss Cassidy's review said that Miss Cutts' British accent slipped by the end of the evening.

Miss Cutts expressed genuine amusement over this in an unfailingly authentic accent She expressed amusement over a lot of things.

But deep inside she's serious. "All people who laugh a lot are," she claims. She's serious when she speaks of art, music, world news, personal discipline and her career.

She has been married and she sidetracked her career for love. Now, she said, she's going to forego romance and keep her nose to the theatrical grindstone.

It's difficult to imagine that American men will permit her to follow through on this resolution when she gets her new David Kidd cocktail dress and wears it with those black and silver slippers.