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Patty McCormack
Most child performers are recalled for their Shirley Templesque sweetness; others for being "awful bad" such as Jane Withers. But no child actor can boast a role as memorably malicious, evil, psychotic and twisted as Patty McCormack, who played Rhoda Penmark, the petite blonde-braided girl who seems so neat, clean and perfect, but who kills a schoolmate because he won a penmanship award she thought was due her in "The Bad Seed" (1956). Come to think of it, McCormack's Rhoda killed half the cast on Broadway in 1954 and on the big screen in 1956. Since outgrowing her youthful parts, Patricia McCormack (as she is now billed) has had a sporadic adult career, but each year a new generation comes to know her 10-year old self as "The Bad Seed."