Robert Hammond Patrick was born on November 5, 1958 in Marietta, Georgia, raised there and Boston, Mass., Dayton, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Cleveland, Ohio. The eldest of five children. He attended the Bowling Green State University in Ohio, but dropped out after he took a drama course and became interested in acting. After leaving college, he took a job as a house painter and continued as such until a boating accident in Lake Erie in 1984. He swam for three hours in order to save the others still stranded on the accident site, while he nea…