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Tayva Patch was not a household name as an actor — but if you watch movies made in Utah, or with a Mormon theme, there's a good chance you've seen her onscreen.
Patch died Saturday in Provo, after complications from surgery, the Sundberg-Olpin Funeral Home reported. She was 62.
Utah filmmaker Richard Dutcher, on his Facebook page this week, said this about Patch: "Such a beautiful, talented, and kind human being. I loved working with her, as I'm sure all of you did. A great, great loss. What a wonderful woman."
Patch co-starred in Dutcher's 2001 crime drama "Brigham City," playing an out-of-town police detective who helps the local sheriff (played by Dutcher) track down a serial killer.
Patch played Mary Magdalene in "The Testaments" (2000), the biblical film that used to play in the theater in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Temple Square. In "Return With Honor" (2006), she played the ailing mother of a returned LDS missionary — and it is her character's conversion to Mormonism that drives the movie's plot.
In three movies by T.C. Christensen and Gary Cook — "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" (2005), "Praise to the Man" (2005) and "Emma Smith: My Story" (2008) — Patch portrayed Lucy Mack Smith, mother to LDS Church founder Joseph Smith.
Other LDS-themed movies in which Patch appeared included: "Out of Step" (2002), a dancer-in-the-big-city romance that was the feature debut of director Ryan Little ("Saints & Soldiers"); and the 2004 comedy "The Home Teachers," directed by Kurt Hale ("The Singles Ward").
Patch also appeared in several made-for-TV movies filmed in Utah, and acted on the stage — where she sometimes also served as a costumer.
Born Tayva Rhoton in Winslow, Ariz., on Feb. 18, 1953, she attended Brigham Young University in the fall of 1972. It was at BYU where she met her future husband, Brian Patch.
She is survived by her husband, their four children, and 11 grandchildren.
A funeral service was set for this morning in Provo.