In 1954, she guest-starred with Peter Mark Richman in an episode of NBC's legal drama, Justice, as a woman threatened by hoodlums. The same year, she appeared in a supporting role as Sylvia Franklin Saperstein in the Sports film Go, Man, Go! (1954), opposite Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier, and the Harlem Globetrotters.
The following year, Breslin was cast in an episode of the CBS anthology series Appointment with Adventure, a series with neither a host nor a regular star. From 1955 to 1958, Breslin co-starred with Jackie Cooper as his girlfriend and then wife in the NBC sitcom, The People's Choice.
In 1960, she guest-starred on the short-lived David McLean Western series, Tate, which aired on NBC. She appeared on Nick Adams' ABC Western, The Rebel and with Jack Lord in his ABC adventure series, Stoney Burke. Thereafter, Breslin played the role of Anne Mitchell, along with co-stars Ralph Bellamy and Paul Fix, in the 1961 episode "The Haven" of CBS's anthology series, The DuPont Show with June Allyson.
She returned to film in 1961, starring in william Castle's horror film Homicidal, and later worked with him again on the thriller I Saw What You Did (1964). In 1964, she was cast in the role of Laura Brooks on the ABC primetime soap opera Peyton Place. She also played the role of Meg Baldwin in the ABC soap opera General Hospital from 1966 to 1969.
Breslin married former Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens NFL team owner and advertising and Business executive Art Modell in 1969. Breslin had two sons from her first marriage to character actor David Orrick McDearmon (1914–1979), sons John and David. Shortly after their marriage, Modell legally adopted Patricia's sons and they took his surname. The family lived in Waite Hill, Ohio, then later Owings Mills, Maryland, with a total of six grandchildren between them.
Breslin became a well-known philanthropist in both Cleveland, Ohio, and Baltimore, Maryland, after relocating to the city in 1995. She and husband Modell donated $5 million to the SEED School of Maryland, a public boarding school for disadvantaged junior high and high school students from around the state. They also donated $3.5 million to help restore the Lyric Opera House, and Breslin served on the boards of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Walters Art Museum, and also donated to the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Breslin died on October 12, 2011, at the age of 80 after a lengthy hospitalization with pancreatitis. Her funeral was offered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore. Her husband Art had been a major contributor to the restoration of the basilica.
