He also played the villainous teenager Peter Stegman in Class of 1984 (1982), Max Keller on The Master (1984), and Sergeant Andy Wojeski in True Blue (1989–1990).
He first gained prominence for his role as Mario "Salami" Pettrino in the CBS drama series The White Shadow from 1978 to 1981 appearing in 54 episodes.
He made his feature film debut in the Mark Lester directed crime thriller Class of 1984 portraying Peter Stegman, the villainous teenager.
Following the cancellation of True Blue Patten quit acting[2] and made his directorial film debut with the series Home Fries in 1991.
Ed, Patten gained greater prominence as a director for a string of critically and commercially successful HBO projects.
He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie HBO miniseries The Pacific (2009) for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series alongside producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
During this time he directed two episodes for the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones, "The Kingsroad" and "Winter is Coming" receiving a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the later.