Pat Patterson, the first major wrestling star to announce that he was gay, died on Wednesday in Miami Beach. He was 79. The cause of his death, in a hospital, was liver failure, said Bertrand Hébert, who collaborated with Mr.
Patterson on his autobiography, “Accepted: How the First Gay Superstar Changed WWE” (2016). After decades of working his way up through regional wrestling circuits in Montreal, Boston and San Francisco, Mr.
Patterson found fame in the late 1970s, when he joined the World Wrestling Federation, which later became World Wrestling Entertainment.
In the ring, Mr. Patterson was fond of surprise. Normally cast as a “heel,” the wrestling term for a villain, he attacked opponents at the exact moment a fight began.