Our Favorite Patricks

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, a day that commemorates one particular Patrick — a fifth-century bishop and patron saint of Ireland. But there are plenty of other Patricks out there who are worthy of celebration … more or less. Here are some of our favorite Patricks, no particular order.

Patrick Star

As starfish go, SpongeBob SquarePants regular Patrick Star might just be a genius. Considering that starfish don’t have a centralized brain but a decentralized nervous system that allows their arms to act independently, it is astounding that Patrick Star, among other accomplishments, passed his driving test with a perfect score the first time, and he wasn’t really even trying. How many of us big-brained humans can say that?

Like many who struggled during the COVID shut-downs, Star made a career pivot in 2021. Though he still maintains his appearance schedule on SpongeBob SquarePants, in the summer of 2021 he embarked on his own undersea talk show, The Patrick Star Show, which is now in its fifth season.

Patrick Star has been derided by some as a lazy, overweight simpleton with the mental capacity of, well, an echinoderm. But we prefer to think of him as an eternally innocent overweight simpleton who never lets the troubles of the world overshadow life’s simple joys.

Patrick Swayze

Breaking through in the early 1980s in such films as Red Dawn, The Outsiders, and the incomparable The Pigs vs. The Freaks, Patrick Swayze was both an actor and — as befits someone whose surname is pronounced “sway-zee” — a dancer. His became a household name, though, after release of the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing, about 17-year-old “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey), who, while vacationing with her family at a Catskills resort in 1963, falls for Swayze’s Johnny Castle, a 26-year-old dance instructor. For their roles, Swayze and Grey were both nominated for Golden Globe awards; so was the movie, which is has been called “sexy,” “romantic,” and, more recently, “problematic AF.”

Swayze’s physicality and good looks continued to win him high-profile, if somewhat typecast, acting roles, including turns as a chiseled, high-kicking bouncer in Road House, as a sexy Chippendales dancer on Saturday Night Live, and as easily the most attractive of a trio of drag queens in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. He also twice found himself in the role of a ghost, first opposite Demi Moore in 1990s Ghost, and again in 2009, after his tragic death from pancreatic cancer at age 57.

Tara Leigh Patrick

Ohio native Tara Leigh Patrick aspired from a young age to be a performer. After her first career steps in a stage show at Ohio’s King’s Island theme park, she moved to Minneapolis, where she was discovered by The Purple One himself, Prince, who produced her first album in 1993. It was also during the mid-1990s that she did four pictorials for and appeared on three covers of Playboy magazine (if you like that sort of thing). She earned national recognition, though, after she moved to Los Angeles and landed a role on the TV series Baywatch.

Since then, her exploits — both on- and off-screen — has been quite varied: She was the 1997 spokeswoman for Max Factor cosmetics. She has appeared in several movies, including Meet the Spartans, Starsky & Hutch, and the moving 2-Headed Shark Attack. She starred in the MTV series ’Til Death Do Us Part with her then-husband Dave Navarro, guitarist for Jane’s Addiction and sometimes Red Hot Chili Peppers (their marriage ended in 2007; neither died). She released her own line of sex toys (if you like that sort of thing), occasionally performs with The Pussycat Dolls, and is a prolific fundraiser for various nonprofits, helping to raise money and awareness for brain tumor sufferers and the treatment of scar tissue for cancer and burn patients, among others.

Though she had long been known by her stage name, it wasn’t until 2024 that a Los Angeles court granted Tara Leigh Patrick’s petition to legally change her name to Carmen Electra.

Patrick Warburton

If you don’t know Patrick Warburton’s face, you know his voice, whether it’s as Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove, Joe Swanson from Family Guy, or Buzz Lightyear in the Buzz Lightyear of Star Command animated series (presumably because they couldn’t afford Tim Allen). Really, though, you know his face, too. He portrayed the thick-headed David Puddy in Seinfeld in the 1990s; the thick-headed superhero wannabe The Tick in, well, The Tick in the early 2000s; and the thick-headed Jeff Bingham in the sitcom Rules of Engagement in the 2010s. His latest effort is the forthcoming comedy/horror/sci-fi movie The Unearthly, in which he plays old-school (and presumably thick-headed) paranormal investigator Tank McCrary, who livestreams a ghost hunt in a notorious haunted mansion.

Patrick Graham

It is surprising that Patrick Graham isn’t more widely known, considering the breadth of his accomplishments. In his early career in the 15th century, Graham was appointed Bishop of Brechin and Bishop of St. Andrews, but he hit the big time when he was named the first Archbishop of St. Andrews. Though a surgeon by trade, he largely gave up that discipline after becoming the colonial governor of Georgia in 1752, a position he held for three years. Not content with Catholic liturgy and American politics, Graham joined the British Royal Navy in 1932 and, after seeing action as a signals officer during World War II, worked his way up the ranks to become the Director of Naval Intelligence. When he wasn’t working for the navy, he was honing is legal knowledge, which would lead to his service as a High Court judge and leading intellectual property law specialist in the 1970s.

For fun and exercise, Mr. Graham enjoys hockey (having played with both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Toronto Maple Leafs), was a heavyweight boxer in Canada, established his photographic oeuvre with snaps of indie rock and punk rock musicians, and coached football; he’s currently the defensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

You would think a man who was so accomplished at such a wide range of disciplines would be more well-known. Well, now you know.

[Editors note: Further research casts doubt on the wide array of achievements attributed here to Patrick Graham. It is likely that these accomplishments are the works of multiple men with the same name rather than the work of one 600-year-old Patrick.]

Patrick Perry

Regular readers of The Saturday Evening Post will recognize the name Patrick Perry; most others probably will not. Perry joined the staff of the Post sometime in the late 1970s — it’s been so long even he isn’t quite sure — and stuck with us through eight presidents, five James Bonds, and two office buildings. He has been the magazine’s editor-in-chief since the autumn of 2022, and a list of our favorite Patricks would be incomplete without him.

That is, we are legally obligated to include him.

Danica Patrick

Danica Patrick got her start in go-kart racing when she was only 10 years old, and she’s been pressing on the gas ever since. When she was only 16, she began racing on the European road racing circuit, bringing some much-needed estrogen to an otherwise testosterone-fueled competition. [Editor’s note: Race cars are not literally fueled by testosterone.]

In 2005, though, she truly announced herself to the world: It was in that year that she participated in her first Indianapolis 500, where she led for 19 laps and came in fourth overall, the first woman with a top-5 finish in that century-old race. In 2013, Danica Patrick made a big splash when she transitioned to NASCAR racing and, that same year, became the first woman to win the pole position in the Daytona 500.

Her skills on the track and her attitude off the track earned her much attention. In 2008 and 2009, she appeared in pictorials in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, making her only the second IndyCar racer to do so (after Mario Andretti). At the height of her popularity, she was a spokeswoman for GoDaddy, appearing in 13 Super Bowl ads for the web hosting company. Patrick has appeared in 14 Super Bowl ads — that includes one for Coca-Cola — more than any other celebrity, if you don’t count soda-drinking polar bears and beer-affiliated Clydesdales.

Now retired from racing, Patrick has thrived as an entrepreneur and motivator. She has launched her own clothing line (Warrior), owns a Napa Valley vineyard (Somnium), wrote the book Pretty Intense, and hosts the weekly Pretty Intense podcast, in which she interviews normal people who are doing amazing things.

Patrick Mahomes II

Born in 1995, this barely-a-Millennial became a must-have personality in advertising before he reached the age of 25. First appearing in a 2019 ad for Kansas-based sub shop Goodcents, Mahomes was then courted by a string of national brands, including Hunt’s ketchup, DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket, Head & Shoulders shampoo, the videogame Madden NFL, and insurance giant State Farm. It was this last relationship, in which he evangelized the benefits of bundling home and auto insurance, that brought him his greatest honor: Being named MVB (Most Valuable Bundler). He has since added T-Mobile to his corral of brands.

Apart from his extensive advertising work, Mahomes also enjoys playing football, and is considered a promising young quarterback.

Patrick Henry

Patrick “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” Henry, considered by some as the Father of Hyperbole, was one of America’s Founding Fathers and a well-known long-winded gasbag. His interminable arguments for breaking from Great Britain in the 18th century were integral to spreading revolutionary fervor among the 13 colonies. Ironically, though, Henry wasn’t a big supporter of what was ultimately written into the U.S. Constitution, believing that it centered the needs and realities of the Northern states to the exclusion of the South.

His early support for Southern representation became an issue during the U.S. Civil War after, in 1861, Confederate forces captured the Yankee steamship Yorktown. Originally built to haul passengers and freight, the Yorktown was converted into a gunboat and renamed the CSS Patrick Henry. Henry himself was largely mum about the use of his name on a Confederate vessel, mainly because, by that time, he had been dead for 63 years.

Patrick Stewart

Early in his life, Sir Patrick Stewart set his sights on a life in classical theater. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stewart has trod the boards in many of the Bard’s most well-known plays, including Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, with little aspiration toward screen acting.

Then, science fiction came for him. After his commanding performance as Gurney Halleck in 1984’s Dune got Hollywood’s attention, he (reluctantly) signed a multi-year contract in 1987 for a revitalization of a classic sci-fi television series. The result, Star Trek: The Next Generation, would transform him from a British Shakespeare nerd into an American sci-fi nerd.

Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard — with his fondness for Earl Grey tea, love of William Shakespeare, and British accent — was, unexpectedly, a Frenchman who lived in a universe where a child born blind could be given sight, but male pattern baldness was too great a hurtle to overcome. Stewart’s shining dome, however (along with his poise, resonant voice, and skilled thespianism), made him the obvious choice to lead the new X-Men franchise in 2000 as Professor Charles Xavier, who, like Stewart himself, has been bald since 1963.

Despite the overwhelming success of these two franchises, Sir Stewart’s greatest on-screen achievement was yet to come. In 2005, he became the voice of CIA Deputy Director Avery Bullock in the hit animated series American Dad. The gravitas and solemnity with which he delivers such lines as “Why can’t more people be poor and simple, like you?” and “Hand me the anal tarring brush” will forever cement his place in the theatrical pantheon.

Honorable Mention: Neil Patrick Harris

As a young man, Neil Patrick Harris — referred to as NPH by starry-eyed fans who have never met him — got America to fall in love with his cherubic dimples and innocent smile as the titular teenage genius in ABC’s Doogie Howser, M.D., a young man simultaneously navigating teen hormones, hospital bureaucracy, and early blogging software. Since then, NPH has devoted his career to obliterating that early impression, pursuing darker roles, like the fascistic scientist and politician Carl Jenkins in 1997’s Starship Troopers; the lecherous and insecure Barney Stinson in the TV series How I Met Your Mother; the evil Count Olaf on Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (narrated by the previously mentioned Patrick Warburton); supervillain Dr. Horrible in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog; and even a short run as The Toymaker in Doctor Who, whose toys and games bring horror rather than joy. NPH has proven himself to be one of the best worst men out there.