About Patricia
Her Story
There are people who move through the world and leave it exactly as they found it. Patricia Friedman was not one of those people.
She was a pioneer. In the wild, fluorescent dawn of the music video, when nobody quite knew what the art form could be yet, Patricia was one of the people figuring it out. She produced for artists who were rewriting pop culture in real time: Cher, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Oingo Boingo. She worked alongside visionary directors like Norman Seeff, Howie Deutsch, and Bob Giraldi. Cool and culture wasn’t something that happened to Patricia, she helped make it. And once she knew how to produce a music video, she applied those same skills to commercials, live events. Sometimes Birthday parties. Fundraisers. Your dinner. Your outfit. Somebody had to be in charge, and Patricia often decided it was her :)
Long before that, she was already moving through the world with a bravery and swagger, from sneaking out to go-go dance in the legendary night clubs of 1960s Hollywood and Beverly Hills, to working at Electric Lady Studios with Jimi Hendrix. Romances with an American heir, movie stars, movie stars before they were movie stars, a rockstar (or several), and Hollywood producers. All a far cry from growing up in the LA suburb of Downey, California.
She loved her brother Herb and her sister Cathie with everything she had, with loyalty, with ferocity, and joy. The three of them lost their mother too young, and their father not long after, and what they built from that loss was something rare: a bond that held. She loved Herb and Cathie’s families as her own (vote for Chad). And beyond them, she had found families all over the world, from New Orleans to Bali. Part of that family was, of course, her dogs, which she adored, photographed constantly, and occasionally let run the show. (There was also, at one point, an ocelot. Of course there was.)
But if you ask anyone what they remember most, it won’t be her work. It will be the way she made you feel interesting and important just because. Especially if you were a kid. “Aunt Pat” had a gift: she’d press a camera into a child’s hands, or a paintbrush, or a guitar, and tell them clearly that you have something to say. Say it. A lot of grown adults are still living out that moment. Her greatest legacy.
When she wasn’t producing, she was making things, jewelry and gorgeous lamps that are now housed in the homes of some of the world’s most famous artists. Her home was an expression of her, and so was her style. She famously had a “go-back room” because she basically invented retail therapy. She’d buy it, bring it home, and return it.
Pat didn’t stumble into a glamorous life. She walked straight toward it, and she never looked back. She loved gardenias, a leopard print, a dog at her feet, frozen yogurt, a cappuccino, a patty melt, rock and roll, and a great thrift store find. She made art. She made beauty. She made everyone around her feel more like themselves.
We were lucky to love her.
