TLDR
One month after Patrick Muldoon’s fatal heart attack at 57, the “Days of Our Lives” and “Melrose Place” actor was honored at an intimate, faith-filled memorial in Santa Monica attended by Denise Richards’ family and his longtime USC and Hollywood circle.
The final tribute to Patrick Muldoon was not a red-carpet Hollywood farewell. It was a quiet Friday gathering inside St. Monica’s Catholic Church in Santa Monica, where the soap star who once played Salem’s bad boy was remembered as a deeply spiritual friend, brother, and near-family member.
On the program handed to mourners, a song filled the church. “I Believe” was written and sung by Muldoon himself, a detail shared by Denise Richards’ daughter Sami Sheen, who posted a glimpse of the service on Instagram. Her message was simple and raw: “Miss u so much, Patrick.”
For Sheen, now 22, Muldoon was more than a one-time boyfriend of her mother. He had remained a constant in her life long after his romance with Richards ended, a steady presence through the churn of fame, divorce, and tabloid cycles that have shadowed the family.
Inside the church, another chapter of Muldoon’s life was represented in a pew nearby. Former USC Trojans quarterback Rodney Peete, who shared a locker room with Muldoon in the 1980s, marked the loss with his own tribute. “Tough Day saying goodbye to my friend Pat Muldoon!!! He was my Teammate, My Brother, my friend. I miss you already, brotha,” Peete wrote alongside an old photo of the pair.
The setting carried its own symbolism. Muldoon attended Loyola High School in Los Angeles, a Jesuit institution, and by all accounts, he never drifted far from the faith and ritual that shaped his teens. Friends say that faith only deepened as his career took him from daytime television to cult-favorite film roles.
Muldoon died in April 2026 after suffering a heart attack at the Beverly Hills home he shared with his girlfriend, Miriam Rothbart. His manager confirmed the cause of death to Variety, and the news rippled quickly through generations of fans who knew him from “Days of Our Lives,” “Melrose Place,” and the 1997 sci-fi film “Starship Troopers.”
Among the first to speak publicly was Richards, 55, who met Muldoon in their first acting class, when she was 19, and he was a USC student juggling football and a recurring role on “Who’s the Boss.” In a long Instagram tribute, she called him her “best friend” and “family,” writing, “And here we are. 36 years later. My whole adult life, and I don’t know it without you.”
She remembered a love story that became a lifelong alliance. “The friendship, love, support, respect, and loyalty we had were unconditional and rare. You lit up every room you walked into,” she wrote, calling him “so talented and most underrated” and praising his laugh, kindness, wit, and “zest for life.”
The pair once dated for nearly five years, then continued to work together, most recently on the crime thriller “Dirty Hands,” released just days after his death. His romantic history also brushed against another 1990s TV empire, with a relationship with Tori Spelling while she was on “Beverly Hills, 90210” and he was on “Melrose Place.”
For Muldoon’s sister, designer and writer Shana Muldoon Zappa, the memorial arrived with a haunting image. She shared the last video her brother sent her, filmed at the opening of the new David Geffen Galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art the night before he died. In it, he focuses on a painting of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, “Saint Ignatius of Loyola’s Vision of Christ and God the Father at La Storta” by Domenico Zampieri.
What will you remember most about Patrick Muldoon, the characters he brought to life, or the loyalty he showed the people closest to him?
The man who made his name playing charming rogues on daytime television spent his final public hours pointing, quietly, to a vision of faith. In Santa Monica, as “I Believe” played and friends clutched programs bearing his name, that detail landed like a final, unmistakable signature on the life he left behind.
