Actress and writer Loretta Basham (April 8, 1933 – January 26, 2026) was born in the Beckley area, the daughter of Carl and Almedia Lilly Basham. Her father was a coal miner, and the family moved often, living in Summers County by the time she was two, in Logan by age seven, and back to Raleigh and Fayette counties by the late 1940s. In three years, Basham attended Collins, Oak Hill, Woodrow Wilson, and Shady Spring high schools, graduating in 1950. Most sources, including her obituary, indicate she graduated from Oak Hill, but some suggest Shady Spring High School. She then moved to Detroit and began her career in print modeling before arriving in New York, where she appeared on the game show Split Personality.

In 1961, Basham relocated to Los Angeles and signed a contract with Universal Pictures. After a TV appearance on The Loretta Young Show, she landed a regular role as schoolteacher Tina Swenson on the final season of the western series Tales of Wells Fargo, performing under the screen name Lory Patrick.

During the 1960s, she appeared in more than 70 TV shows, including The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, General Electric Theater, Bonanza, and Laramie and in the films It’s a Man’s World (1962), Surf Party (1964), and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967). She then left acting to pursue screenwriting and directing.

She married Robert Pastick in 1951 in Detroit. In 1966, she married New Wave speculative fiction author Harlan Ellison, though their marriage ended in divorce the following year. She also was briefly married to director Ralph Riskin and Paul Walter Heller.

In 1973, she married actor Dean Jones. Together, they established a counseling ministry, served as elders for The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, and founded the Christian Rescue Committee (now Christian Rescue Fund). In 1984, she directed Jones in the one-man play St. John in Exile.

Writing became an increasingly important part of her later career. In 1993, she published the book Hearing God under the name Loretta Basham Jones. She also served on the U.S. and international boards of Food for the Hungry and the board of regents of L.I.F.E. Bible College.

In later years, she devoted much of her time to writing and painting. After her husband’s death in 2015, she moved from Tarzana, California, to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where she died at age 92.