This Day in Horror History: Happy Birthday, SCREAM QUEEN Mark Patton!
Mike Sprague
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On this day in horror history, Mark Patton was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1959. Best known for his role as Jessie Walsh in director Jack Sholder’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Patton is also the subject of the must-see 2019 documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street.
Openly gay, Patton tours conventions as the first male “scream queen.” Patton grew up in Riverside, Missouri, and moved to New York City to pursue an acting career after graduating high school. There he landed the role of Joe Qualley, a pre-transition teen transgender woman, in the Broadway production of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. He reprised the role in the film.
After starring in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Patton gave up acting after being cast in a CBS series where he would have played a gay character. He says: “They began to ask me if I would be comfortable playing a gay character and telling people I was straight if they began to question my sexuality?… All I could think about was how everyone I knew was dying from AIDS and we were having this bullshit conversation. My heart just broke and that was the line for me. I knew I would never be able to do what they were asking, so I walked away from Hollywood and decided to move on to a place where it was totally acceptable to be gay.”
Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street is directed by Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen and premiered at the Cleveland International Film Festival on April 5, 2019. It later screened at Fantastic Fest on September 22, 2019, where it was followed by a screening of Freddy’s Revenge in 35 mm. It had a limited theatrical run in February and was released digitally and on DVD back in March.
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