Patricia Neal (bornPatsy Louise Neal; January 20, 1926 – August 8, 2010) was an American actress of stage and screen. She is well known for, among other roles, playing World WarII widow Helen Benson inThe Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), radio journalist Marcia Jeffries inA Face in the Crowd (1957), wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson inBreakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and the worn-out housekeeper Alma Brown inHud (1963) (for which she won theAcademy Award for Best Actress). She also featured as the matriarch in the television filmThe Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971); her role as Olivia Walton was re-cast for the series it inspired,The Waltons. A major star of the 1950s and 1960s, she was the recipient of anAcademy Award, aGolden Globe Award, aTony Award, and twoBritish Academy Film Awards, and was nominated for threePrimetime Emmy Awards.
Neal grew up inKnoxville, Tennessee, where she attendedKnoxville High School,[3] and studied drama atNorthwestern, where she was a member ofPi Beta Phi sorority. At Northwestern, she was crowned Syllabus Queen in a campus-wide beauty pageant. She left Northwestern after talent scouts convinced her to leave for New York.[4]
Neal won theAcademy Award for Best Actress for her performance inHud (1963),[7] co-starring withPaul Newman. When the film was initially released it was predicted she would be a nominee in the Supporting Actress category, but when she began collecting awards, they were always for Best Actress, from the New York Film Critics, the National Board of Review and aBAFTA award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
Neal was re-united with John Wayne inOtto Preminger'sIn Harm's Way (1965), winning her second BAFTA Award. Her next film wasThe Subject Was Roses (1968), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She starred as the matriarch in the television filmThe Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971), which inspired the television seriesThe Waltons; she won aGolden Globe for her performance. In a 1999 interview with theArchive of American Television,Waltons creatorEarl Hamner said he and producers were unsure if Neal's health would allow her to commit to the schedule of a weekly television series; so, instead, they castMichael Learned in the role of Olivia Walton. Neal played a dying widowed mother trying to find a home for her three children in an episode of NBC'sLittle House on the Prairie broadcast in 1975.
Neal appeared in a series of television commercials in the 1970s and 1980s, notably for pain relief medicine Anacin and Maxim instant coffee.
Neal played thetitle role inRobert Altman's movieCookie's Fortune (1999). She worked onSilvana Vienne's movieBeyond Baklava: The Fairy Tale Story of Sylvia's Baklava (2007), appearing as herself in the portions of the documentary talking about alternative ways to end violence in the world. In the same year as the film's release, Neal received one of two annually-presented Lifetime Achievement Awards at the SunDeis Film Festival inWaltham, Massachusetts. (Academy Award nomineeRoy Scheider was the recipient of the other.)
Having won aTony Award in its inaugural year (1947), eventually becoming the last surviving winner from that first ceremony. Neal often appeared as a presenter in later years. Her original Tony was lost, so she was given a surprise replacement byBill Irwin when they were about to present the 2006Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play toCynthia Nixon. In April 2009, Neal received a lifetime achievement award from WorldFest Houston on the occasion of the debut of her film,Flying By. Neal was a long-term actress withPhilip Langner's Theatre at Sea/Sail With the Stars productions with theTheatre Guild. In her final years she appeared in a number of health-care videos.[8]
In 1948, either during filming or after finishing work onThe Fountainhead (1949), Neal began an affair with her married co-starGary Cooper, whom she had met in 1947 when she was 21 and he was 46.[10][11] Cooper's wife confronted him and Cooper confessed that he was in love with Neal, and continued to see her.[12][13] Cooper and his wife were legally separated in May 1951,[14] but he did not seek a divorce.[15] Neal later claimed that Cooper hit her after she went on a date withKirk Douglas, and that he arranged for her to have an abortion when she became pregnant with Cooper's child.[16] Neal ended their relationship in late December 1951.[17]
Neal met British writerRoald Dahl at a dinner party hosted byLillian Hellman in 1952, while Dahl was living in New York.[19] They married on July 2, 1953, atTrinity Church in New York. The marriage produced five children.[1]
On December 5, 1960, their son Theo, four months old, suffered brain damage when his baby carriage was struck by a taxicab in New York City. In May 1961, the family returned toGipsy House inGreat Missenden, Buckinghamshire, where Theo continued his rehabilitation.[21] Neal described the two years of family life during Theo's recovery as one of the most beautiful periods of her life.[21] However, on November 17, 1962, their daughterOlivia died at age 7 frommeasles encephalitis.[22] The story of Olivia's death and how Neal and Dahl coped with the tragedy was dramatized in 2020 as a made-for-TV movie,To Olivia.[23]
Neal was a heavy smoker.[24] She suffered three burstcerebral aneurysms while pregnant in 1965 and was in a coma for three weeks.Variety magazine ran an obituary, but she survived with the assistance of Dahl and a number of volunteers who developed a gruelling style of therapy which fundamentally changed the way that stroke patients were treated.[25] This period of their lives was dramatised in the television filmThe Patricia Neal Story (1981), in which the couple was played byGlenda Jackson andDirk Bogarde.[26] On August 4, 1965, Neal gave birth to a healthy daughter. She subsequently relearned to walk and talk,[21] and after her recovery, was nominated for an Oscar for her 1968 performance inThe Subject Was Roses.
In 1983, following Dahl's 11-year affair with Felicity D'Abreu,[27] a set designer he met when she worked with Neal on a Maxim Coffee advertisement, Neal's marriage ended in divorce.[28] She returned to live in the US. In her autobiography,As I Am (1988), Neal wrote: "A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug."[29]
She had become aCatholic four months before she died[31] and was buried in theAbbey of Regina Laudis inBethlehem, Connecticut, where the actressDolores Hart, her friend since the early 1960s, had become a nun and ultimately prioress. Neal had been a longtime supporter of the abbey's open-air theatre and arts program.[32]
In 1978, Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, dedicated the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center in her honor. The center provides intense treatment for stroke, spinal cord, and brain injury patients. It serves as part of Neal's advocacy for paralysis victims. She regularly visited the center in Knoxville, providing encouragement to its patients and staff. Neal appeared as the center's spokeswoman in advertisements until her death.[33]
^Tom Goldie:"Tom Goldie's Telenews: Steel on Your Screen,"The Times (Tuesday, July 7, 1959), p. 8. "Producer John Jacobs had a hard time filling the role of the husband. He wantedErnest Borgnine, orKarl Malden, orAnthony Quinn, but none of them was available. Then he saw Persoff playing a featured role in the film,Al Capone, and promptly invited him to come over from America specially forClash by Night.
^Drake, Tim (August 25, 2010)."Mother Dolores Hart Talks About Patricia Neal, Gary Cooper".National Catholic Register. EWTN News, Inc. RetrievedDecember 22, 2018.Four months ago, when she was hospitalized with her illness, she called me and said she wanted to be a Catholic. She made the step at that time. She had waited a long time and finally threw in her towel on March 30, 2010.
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