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“ | Pierce Patchett: I use girls that look like movie stars. Sometimes I employ a plastic surgeon. When the work had been done, that's when you saw us. Bud White: That's why her mother couldn't I.D. her. Jesus fu**ing Christ. Pierce Patchett: No, Mr. White. Pierce Morehouse Patchett. Now I sense that you're on your best behavior, but that's really all you're going to get. If you have any more questions, I'll meet you with my attorney. |
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~ Pierce Patchett explaining his activities to Officer Bud White. |
Pierce Patchett is the secondary antagonist of the 1997 crime-thriller hit film L.A. Confidential, based on the novel of the same name by James Elroy.
A powerful-yet-conniving individual, he is the owner of Fleur-de-Lis, a prostitution ring in which he has some females surgically altered to resemble famous actresses and then are sold to clients around Los Angeles. Soon enough Patchett teams up with the crooked policeman Captain Dudley Smith to overthrow the city's gangland boss Mickey Cohen and takeover the latter's criminal empire in order to dictate crime around the city itself.
He was portrayed by David Strathairn, who also played Noah Vosen in The Bourne franchise.
Biography[]
Pierce Patchett is known to be a pimp boss operating his business called "Fleur-de-Lis" in Los Angeles itself.
He is first seen with a prostitute named Susan “Sue” Lefferts and has his guard Leland “Buzz” Meeks sent to deal with Officer Wendell “Bud” White. White questions if the girls okay to which Patchett replies “yes”. White gains more info on Patchett’s business Fleur-de-Lis, to which White’s love interest Lynn Bracken is a part of. It’s clear and explicit that Susan is being abused by Buzz from their encounter with White himself. We later see photos of Patchett’s girls being stripped naked and forced into seductive poses. Jack Vincennes wants to discover more about Patchett as well and calls the place to which a woman responds and promptly hangs up once he says a friend got the number.
Soon enough Patchett begins assisting police captain Dudley Smith in the latter's coup to takeover crime in LA by overthrowing it's gangland kingpin Mickey Cohen, part of which is to assert control of Cohen's criminal empire. This begins with Smith's men assassinating Cohen’s lieutantants to consolidate power over Los Angeles: we see four being shot on-screen. Patchett later assists Smith in having the Nite Owl coffee shop shot at, resulting in the death of the cook, a bartender, Susan, White’s colleague Dick Stensland, Patti DeLuca, and one other chap at the men’s bathroom. Afterwards, Patchett helps Smith frame three Africans for the crime.
A few days later, White confronts Patchett while he’s playing golf and he says he was hosting a party while dismissing his worker named Philip. It is then Patchett admits he has plastic surgeons work on females to turn them into actress lookalikes such as Veronica Lake. Patchett avoids suspicion for now and hopes he finds Susan’s murderer, but White doesn’t trust the information he gave him.
White visits Lynn’s high-class apartment and interrogates her about Patchett. It soon becomes clear that Patchett wants compensation and is manipulating Lynn to say what he wants her to say. Patchett has Buzz killed and hidden in the basement of Susan’s residence. Patchett has a council member threatened with leaks of him with one of Patchett’s ladies to vote him and thus Patchett hosts a grand opening of a construction site and sees Lynn during another party he started. One of Patchett’s other clients named Matt Reynolds (who is young) is shown to be scared of him. Patchett, Smith, and Sid Hudgens conspire to dispose of Matt for knowing too much.
Patchett talks to Smith, Vincennes, and Exley about the answers and phones Hudgens while Exley questions Lynn about Patchett having her see have sex with White himself. Exley convinces Lynn to have sex with him while Hudgens takes photos of the entire thing. Meanwhile, Patchett alerts Smith of Vincennes' investigation and in turn Smith murders Vincennes at his own house at Echo Park. Patchett and Smith then eliminate Hudgens who spills the beans that Patchett deals with heroin and that he stole it from Cohen’s stash. Patchett and Smith exposes the photos to instigate a conflict with Exley and White that nearly leads to the former’s death.
Exley and White then work together to burst into Patchett’s house only to discover his dead body sitting in a chair on a suicide note. Smith had him offed by tying him, drugging him, breaking his finger and slitting his wrists open so he can have it all to himself.
Trivia[]
- It is unknown how many minutes of screen-time he had throughout the movie.