Everything about Patricia Neal totally explained
Patricia Neal (born
January 20 1926) is an
American award-winning
actress of stage and screen.
Biography
Neal was born
Patsy Louise Neal, in
Packard, Whitley County,
Kentucky. She grew up in
Knoxville, Tennessee, and later went on to study drama at
Northwestern University. After moving to New York, she accepted her first job as understudy in the
Broadway production of
The Voice of the Turtle. Soon, though, she appeared in
Another Part of the Forest (1946), winning a
Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play. She also appeared in a 1952 revival of
The Children's Hour and
The Miracle Worker (1959).
In 1948, Neal made her film debut in
John Loves Mary. Her appearance the same year in
The Fountainhead coincided with her on-going affair with her married co-star,
Gary Cooper, whom she'd met the year before, when he was 46 and she was 21. By 1950, Cooper's wife, Veronica, had found out about the relationship and sent Neal a
telegram demanding they end it. Neal became pregnant by Cooper, but he persuaded her to have an
abortion, which made her feel guilty for many years. The affair ended, but not before Cooper's daughter, Maria (now Maria Cooper Janis, born 1937), spat at her in public. Years after Cooper's death, Maria and her mother Veronica reconciled with Patricia Neal.
Neal met British writer
Roald Dahl at a dinner party hosted by
Lillian Hellman in 1951. They married on
July 2,
1953, at
Trinity Church in
New York. The marriage produced five children: Olivia Twenty (
April 20 1955 -
November 17 1962), who died of measles encephalitis; Chantal
Tessa Sophia; Theo Matthew (b. 1960);
Ophelia Magdalena; and Lucy Neal (b. 1965).
By 1952, Neal had starred in
The Breaking Point,
The Day the Earth Stood Still and
Operation Pacific (the last with
John Wayne). She suffered a
nervous breakdown around that time, following the end of her relationship with Cooper, and left Hollywood for New York, where she returned to Broadway in a revival of
The Children's Hour, in 1952. (She also acted in
A Roomful of Roses in 1955, and as the mother in
The Miracle Worker in 1959.)
In films, she starred in
A Face in the Crowd (1957) and co-starred in
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). In 1961 and 1962 she suffered the death of one child and a grievous injury to another. Her daughter Olivia died from measles and her son Theo's carriage was hit by a taxi when he was just four months old.
In 1963, Neal won the
Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in
Hud, co-starring Paul Newman. When the film was initially released it was predicted she'd be a nominee in the supporting actress category but she began collecting awards and they were always for Best Leading Actress. She not only received the Academy Award but also picked up awards from the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review. She also received a BAFTA award from the British Academy. Two years later, she was reunited with John Wayne in Otto Preminger's
In Harm's Way winning her second BAFTA Award.
Later in 1965, Neal suffered three burst
cerebral aneurysms while pregnant, and was in a coma for three weeks. Dahl directed her rehabilitation and she subsequently relearned to walk and talk ("I think I'm just stubborn, that's all"). On
August 4 1965, she gave birth to a healthy daughter, Lucy.
Neal was offered the role of "Mrs. Robinson" in
The Graduate (1967), but turned it down, feeling it had come too soon after her strokes. She returned to the big screen in
The Subject Was Roses (1968), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award.
She later starred as Olivia Walton in the
television movie (1971), which was the pilot episode for
The Waltons. Although she won a
Golden Globe for her performance, she wasn't invited to reprise the role in the television series; the part went to
Michael Learned. Neal played a dying widowed mother trying to find a home for her three children in a moving 1975 episode of NBC's
Little House on the Prairie.
In 1978, Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center in Knoxville dedicated the
Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center in her honor. The center serves as part of Neal's paralysis victim advocacy. She has appeared in center advertisements throughout 2006.
In 1981,
Glenda Jackson played her in a television movie,
The Patricia Neal Story which co-starred
Dirk Bogarde as Roald Dahl. Neal and Dahl's stormy 30-year marriage finally ended in divorce in November 1983 after Dahl's affair with Neal's then-best friend, Felicity Crosland. In 1988 Neal published an
autobiography,
As I Am.
In 2007, Neal received one of two annually-presented Lifetime Achievement Awards at the
SunDeis Film Festival in Waltham, Massachusetts. (Academy Award nominee
Roy Scheider was the recipient of the other.)
She lives in
New York City, and owns a house on
Martha's Vineyard. She is a frequent speaker at
Pro-Life meetings and rallies, discussing her conviction that her own abortion was a mistake which had brought her great emotional pain.
She often appears on the Tony Awards telecast. This may be because she's the only surviving winner from the first ceremony. Her original Tony was lost so she was given a replacement by Bill Irwin when they presented the Best Actress Award to Cynthia Nixon in 2006.
Filmography
Film
Television
- Strindberg on Love (1960)
- Special for Women: Mother and Daughter (1961)
- The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971)
- Things in Their Season (1974)
- Eric (1975)
- Tail Gunner Joe (1977)
- A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story (1978)
- The Bastard (1978) (miniseries)
- All Quiet on the Western Front (1979)
- The Patricia Neal Story (1981) (cameo)
- Love Leads the Way: A True Story (1984)
- Glitter (1984) (pilot for series)
- Shattered Vows (1984)
- Caroline? (1990)
- A Mother's Right: The Elizabeth Morgan Story (1992)
- Heidi (1993)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Patricia Neal'.
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