Patricia Neal

A major star of the 1950s and 1960s, she was the recipient of an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, and two British Academy Film Awards, and was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards.

Patricia Neal studied at Northwestern University, Northwestern University School of Communication and Knoxville High School. Training under Michael Chekhov is recorded. The recorded working language is English. Residence is recorded at Edgartown. Employment is recorded with Warner Bros. Distinctions recorded are Academy Award for Best Actress, Theatre World Award, Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play and star on Hollywood Walk of Fame.

• Name — Patricia Neal • Birth Name — Patsy Louise Neal • Born — 20 January 1926 • Birthplace — Packard, Whitley County, Kentucky, U.S. • Died — 8 August 2010 • Place of death — Edgartown, Massachusetts, U.S. • Resting Place — Abbey of Regina Laudis • Occupation — Actress • Years Active — 1945–2010 • Children — * Olivia • Tessa • Theo • Ophelia • Lucy • Relatives — * Sophie Dahl (granddaughter) • Phoebe Dahl (granddaughter)

Neal was born in Packard, Whitley County, Kentucky, to William Burdette Neal and Eura Mildred (née Petrey) Neal. She had two siblings. Neal grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she attended Knoxville High School, and studied drama at Northwestern, where she was a member of Pi 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.

Neal gained her first job in New York as an understudy in the Broadway production of the John Van Druten play The Voice of the Turtle. Next, she appeared in Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest (1946), winning the 1947 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play, in the first presentation of the Tony awards. Neal made her film debut with Ronald Reagan in John Loves Mary in 1949, followed by another role with Reagan in The Hasty Heart the same year. Her work in The Fountainhead, which was released in 1949, coincided with her affair with married co-star Gary Cooper; she worked with him again in Bright Leaf (1950). • Illustration — John Wayne and Patricia Neal Neal starred with John Garfield in The Breaking Point (1950), in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) with Michael Rennie, and in Operation Pacific (also 1951) starring John Wayne. She suffered a nervous breakdown around this time, following the end of her relationship with Gary Cooper, and departed Hollywood for New York, returning to Broadway in 1952 for a revival of The Children's Hour. In 1955, she starred in Edith Sommer's A Roomful of Roses, staged by Guthrie McClintic. • Illustration — Neal with Andy Griffith While in New York, Neal became a member of the Actors Studio. Based on connections with other members, she subsequently co-starred in the film A Face in the Crowd (1957, directed by Elia Kazan), the play The Miracle Worker (1959, directed by Arthur Penn), the film Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and the film Hud (1963), directed by Martin Ritt and starring Paul Newman. During the same period, she appeared on television in an episode of The Play of the Week (1960), featuring an Actors Studio-dominated cast in a double bill of plays by August Strindberg. In a British production of Clifford Odets' Clash by Night (1959), she co-starred with one of the first generation of Actors Studio members, Nehemiah Persoff. • Illustration — Neal with Paul Newman Neal won the Academy Award for Best Actress in Hud (1963), co-starring with Paul 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 a BAFTA award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Neal was re-united with John Wayne in Otto Preminger's In Harm's Way (1965), winning her second BAFTA Award. Her next film was The Subject Was Roses (1968), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She starred as the matriarch in the television film The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971), which inspired the television series The Waltons; she won a Golden Globe for her performance. In a 1999 interview with the Archive of American Television, Waltons creator Earl 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 cast Michael 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's Little 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 the title role in Robert Altman's movie Cookie's Fortune (1999). She worked on Silvana Vienne's movie Beyond 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 in Waltham, Massachusetts. (Academy Award nominee Roy Scheider was the recipient of the other.) Having won a Tony 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 by Bill Irwin when they were about to present the 2006 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play to Cynthia 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 with Philip Langner's Theatre at Sea/Sail With the Stars productions with the Theatre Guild. In her final years she appeared in a number of health-care videos. Neal was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2003. She was a subject of the British television show This Is Your Life in 1978 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at a cocktail party on London's Park Lane.

In 1948, either during filming or after finishing work on The Fountainhead (1949), Neal began an affair with her married co-star Gary Cooper, whom she had met in 1947 when she was 21 and he was 46. Cooper's wife confronted him and Cooper confessed that he was in love with Neal, and continued to see her. Cooper and his wife were legally separated in May 1951, but he did not seek a divorce. Neal later claimed that Cooper hit her after she went on a date with Kirk Douglas, and that he arranged for her to have an abortion when she became pregnant with Cooper's child. Neal ended their relationship in late December 1951. • Illustration — Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl: photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1954 Neal met British writer Roald Dahl at a dinner party hosted by Lillian Hellman in 1952, while Dahl was living in New York. They married on July 2, 1953, at Trinity Church in New York. The marriage produced five children. • Olivia Twenty (1955–1962) • Chantal Sophia "Tessa" (born 1957) (mother of Sophie Dahl) • Theo Matthew (born 1960) • Ophelia Magdalena (born 1964) • Lucy Neal (born 1965) 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 to Gipsy House in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, where Theo continued his rehabilitation. Neal described the two years of family life during Theo's recovery as one of the most beautiful periods of her life. However, on November 17, 1962, their daughter Olivia died at age 7 from measles encephalitis. 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. Neal was a heavy smoker. She suffered three cerebral aneurysms while pregnant in 1965 and was in a coma for three weeks. Assuming she had died, Variety magazine ran her obituary, but she survived with the assistance of Dahl and a number of volunteers who developed a grueling style of therapy which fundamentally changed the way that stroke patients were treated. This period of their lives was dramatized in the television film The Patricia Neal Story (1981), in which the couple was played by Glenda Jackson and Dirk Bogarde. On August 4, 1965, Neal gave birth to a healthy daughter, Lucy. Due to the numerous health issues she experienced during the pregnancy, she subsequently had to relearn to walk and talk. Lucy told The Virginian Pilot "I was inside my mother's stomach when she had her stroke [...] The doctors said it would take my mother two years to recover. My father taught my mother to speak, every single day." After her recovery, she was nominated for an Oscar for her 1968 performance in The Subject Was Roses. In 1983, following Dahl's 11-year affair with Felicity D'Abreu, a set designer he met when she worked with Neal on a Maxim Coffee advertisement, Neal's marriage ended in divorce. 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."

Neal died at her home in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, on August 8, 2010, from lung cancer. She was 84 years old. She had become a Catholic four months before she died and was buried in the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, where the actress Dolores 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. • Illustration — Patricia Neal at the Tribeca Film Festival (2007)

• Year — Project — Role — Notes • 1954 — Goodyear Playhouse — Episode: "Spring Reunion" • 1958 — Suspicion — Paula Elgin — Episode: "Someone Is After Me" • 1957–1958 — Playhouse 90 — Rena Menken Margaret — Episode: "The Gentleman from Seventh Avenue" Episode: "The Playroom" • 1954–1958 — Studio One in Hollywood — Caroline Mann Miriam Leslie — Episode: "Tide of Corruption" Episode: "A Handful of Diamonds" • 1958 — Pursuit — Mrs. Conrad — Episode: "The Silent Night" • 1959 — Rendezvous — Kate Merlin — Episode: "London-New York" • Clash by Night — Mia Wilenski • 1960 — The Play of the Week — Mistress Grace Wilson — Episode: "Strindberg on Love" Episode: "The Magic and the Loss" • 1961 — Special for Women: Mother and Daughter — Ruth Evans • 1962 — Drama 61-67 — Beebee Fenstermaker — Episode: "Drama '62: The Days and Nights of Beebee" • Checkmate — Fran Davis — Episode: "The Yacht-Club Gang" • The Untouchables — Maggie Storm — Episode: "The Maggie Storm Story" • Westinghouse Presents: That's Where the Town Is Going — Ruby Sills • Winter Journey — Georgie Elgin • Zero One — Margo — Episode: "Return Trip" • 1963 — Ben Casey — Dr. Louise Chapelle — Episode: "My Enemy Is a Bright Green Sparrow" • Espionage — Jeanne — Episode: "The Weakling" • 1971 — The Homecoming: A Christmas Story — Olivia Walton — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series — Drama Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role • 1972 — Circle of Fear — Ellen Alexander — Episode: "Time of Terror" • 1974 — Kung Fu — Sara Kingsley — Episode: "Blood of Dragon" • Things in Their Season — Peg Gerlach • 1975 — Eric — Lois Swensen — TV movie • Little House on the Prairie — Julia Sanderson — Episode: "Remember Me" • Movin' On — Maddie — Episode: "Prosperity #1" • 1976 — The American Woman: Portraits of Courage — Narrator • 1977 — Tail Gunner Joe — Sen. Margaret Chase Smith — Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Drama Special • 1978 — A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story — Mrs. Gehrig • The Bastard — Marie Charboneau • 1979 — All Quiet on the Western Front — Paul's Mother — Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Special • 1984 — Glitter — Madame Lil — Episode: "Pilot" • Love Leads the Way: A True Story — Mrs. Frank — TV movie • Shattered Vows — Sister Carmelita — TV movie • 1990 — Caroline? — Miss Trollope — TV movie • Murder, She Wrote — Milena Maryska — Episode: "Murder in F Sharp" • 1992 — A Mother's Right: The Elizabeth Morgan Story — Antonia Morgan • 1993 — Heidi — Grandmother

• Run — Play — Role — Notes • November 20, 1946 – April 26, 1947 — Another Part of the Forest — Regina Hubbard — Tony Award for Best Supporting or Featured Actress in a Play Theatre World Award • December 18, 1952 – May 30, 1953 — The Children's Hour — Martha Dobie • October 17, 1955 – December 31, 1955 — A Roomful of Roses — Nancy Fallon • October 19, 1959 – July 1, 1961 — The Miracle Worker — Kate Keller

Patricia Neal was recorded at birth as Patsy Louise Neal. The authorities additionally record the heading Patsy Louise Neal. Her recorded language was English. Her recorded confession was Catholic Church. She was the child of William Burdette and Eura Petrey Neal. She married Roald Dahl. 4 children are recorded: Lucy Dahl, Ophelia Dahl, Tessa Dahl and Olivia Dahl.

Patricia Neal is recorded as having received Academy Award for Best Actress, Theatre World Award and Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Formation and teaching. Neal studied at Northwestern University, Northwestern University School of Communication and Knoxville High School. She trained under Michael Chekhov.