Helena Patterson

Helena Patterson is a minor character in the 1996 action/adventure/thriller film The Ghost and the Darkness. She is the wife of Colonel John Henry Patterson and the mother of his son. 

Background

Little is known of Patterson's background, other than that she married Colonel John Henry Patterson and supported him. She became pregnant with his son, but he accepted a bridge-building job in Africa before they knew the date.

The Ghost and the Darkness

Helena Patterson made her debut in the film with her husband after he had spoken with his employer about his job in Africa, telling him that she wanted him to go to Africa as he had been desperate to see his whole life, telling him goodbye as he left. Though she sent him a letter later in the film, Patterson was not seen again until the end of the film, carrying their son and greeting her husband with a smile, before letting him hold him.

Personality

As an English woman, Helena Patterson is very vain, dressing in very nice clothing all the time and having a very freindly and proper manner. She loves her husband very much and is very supportive of him.

Trivia

Helena Patterson neé Gray, was indeed a real person and the wife of the actual John Henry Patterson, she was not pregnant at the time and did not come to see him as the film portrayed. Helena was born in Belfast the daughter of William Gray, a pioneering educationalist and amatuer achaeologist, she was only the second woman in the British Empire to be awarded a PhD in Law via what is today University College Dublin.