Patricia Klein

1921 - 2013

Patricia Windrow Klein died on March 5 at Blue Ridge Hospice, Winchester, Virginia, after a long illness. She was 91.

She is survived by Howard Klein of Front Royal, her husband of 54 years; three sons, Kenneth Theodore Perez, Adam Charles Josef Klein and Laurence Parker (Moondi) Klein; five grandchildren, Esten and Kari Perez, Lauren and Connor Klein, and David Brantley; and two great grandchildren, Max and Mya Perez.

Her professional life spanned acting in films in France and in the United States, theater, radio, television and, most prominently, as an oil painter. She is listed in Who's Who in American Art and The Dictionary of Achievement. Her paintings are in the collections the Minnesota Museum of Art, West Publishing's Art and the Law, The Parrish Museum in Southampton, New York, and the Catherine Lorillard Wolff Arts Club of New York. Numerous private collectors, such as Robert Redford, Vladimir Horowitz, John Cage, and R. Philip Hanes, also acquired her work. She had exhibitions in galleries in New York, Washington, D.C. and Palm Beach.

Patricia Windrow lived and worked in Front Royal for 22 years, opening her first art gallery on Main Street in 1991. In order to do that she had to renovate the old building at 401 East Main Street, then a derelict, into a gallery with two apartments above. During the course of her life she had renovated 42 houses and other structures, often decorating them with murals and other painterly decor. Her last project in 2005 was an 1880s house on Virginia Avenue in Front Royal.

She was a colorful character known for her direct personal style as well as for her accomplished work as an artist. She was commissioned to paint murals in local restaurants, notably the Feed Mill (now the Main Street Mill), as well as two local schools. She spearheaded the construction of and designed the Centennial Sundial near the Visitors Center. She was a founding member of the board of The Carter Family Memorial Music Center, Inc., in Hiltons, VA.

She was born Aria Hope Sunbeam Windrow in London, England, on September 12, 1921, and grew up in Paris, France, where she was schooled. She moved to the United States with her mother, father and older sister, just prior to the invasion of France by the Germans in World War II. She completed her schooling in New York City, married a film actor, Jose Perez, and moved with him to Hollywood. While there, she acted in Lydia, a film directed by Julien Duvivier starring Merle Oberon and Joseph Cotton. As a 12 year old living in France, Pat had acted in Duvivier's 1933 film Le petit roi (The Little King). She contacted him in Hollywood and he offered her a small speaking role, which Pat later said, "Paid the rent for five weeks."

Pat's father, Stellan Sven Windrow, had been hired, at the age of 18, to be the first Tarzan in a silent film called Tarzan of the Apes. After completing the 'tree-work,' swinging on ropes through the trees of Louisiana, he joined the navy as World War I broke out, leaving his role to the well-known Elmo Lincoln.

Pat returned to New York by herself and found jobs acting on radio in soap operas such as Life Can Be Beautiful, and with The Voice of America, which broadcast programs to the GIs in Europe, and sharing scripts with actors such as Yul Brynner. Her son, Kenneth Perez, was born in 1941. She acted on Broadway under the name, Patricia Courtley, in Alfred Deliagra, Jr.'s production of The Madwoman of Chaillot, starring Martita Hunt, Estelle Winwood and John Carradine. It, too, paid the rent, running for 368 performances from 1948 to 1950.

In 1958 she met and married Howard Klein, a pianist and later a music critic with The New York Times. By then, Patricia Windrow was painting full time, living in Setauket, Long Island, New York and maintaining her own art gallery, a renovated slaughter house on Rte. 25A. She also developed and hosted a weekly educational television program called, "The Cable Easel," that ran for 12 years.
A pioneering series of television art instruction, it was recognized in 1988 by a coveted Cable Ace Award.

A celebration of life will be held at a later date.

Ministry of Comfort entrusted to Cartwright Funeral Home, Inc., Winchester, Virginia. cartwrightfuneralhome.com

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