Sad news broke this morning with the report of the passing away of Academy Award-winning actress Patricia Neal, who died of lung cancer at home in Martha’s Vineyard in the early hours of this morning.
Neal was born in Kentucky, and grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, before moving to New York and working in the theater, winning a Tony award at the very first ceremony in 1947. She came to cinematic fame with her role in “The Fountainhead,” alongside Gary Cooper, with whom she had a rather destructive affair at the time.
She’s perhaps best known for the original “The Day The Earth Stood Still,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” and, most importantly, for her extraordinary, Oscar-winning role in “Hud,” as the housekeeper Alma. However, before her Academy Award-winning turn, Neal impressed in Elia Kazan’s acidic and dark “A Face In The Crowd.” In the film she plays a small-town radio personality who discovers a potential star in Andy Griffith. He goes on a fast rise to the top only to destroy himself and everybody around him in the process. It’s a great film marked by strong performances by the entire cast and is as much of a must-see as the better known “Hud.”
However, in 1965, her career was sadly stymied when she suffered three strokes during a pregnancy, leaving her in a coma for three weeks. When she woke up, she was paralyzed, and had to learn how to walk and talk again. However, she managed to pick up another Oscar nomination for her role in “The Subject Was Roses” in 1968, and worked intermittently from then on; her last performance of note being as the title character in Robert Altman’s “Cookie’s Fortune,” although her final role was in the Billy Ray Cyrus drama “Flying By” last year.
She was married to author Roald Dahl for 30 years, although they divorced in 1983. She is survived by her children from that marriage Chantal, Theo, Ophelia and Lucy.
