With the news of the death of Patricia Neal, I was reminded of many things: her Oscar winning role as Alma in Hud, her marriage to Roald Dahl and her recovery from a stroke that had left her speechless and paralyzed.
A Southern Girl, who came to the Stage and Screen via Northwestern and her own sheer will, Neal's Breakout role was as Dominique Francon in King Vidor's direction of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. In real life, she began an affair with her leading man in The Fountainhead, Gary Cooper. The affair ended with heartbreak, when Cooper would not leave his wife and Neal terminated a pregnancy.
Neal next married Roald Dahl; later admitting that she didn't love him but dearly wanted children. She would have 5 children with Dahl, but their life was marked with death and disability. A son would suffer a traumatic head injury and a daughter would die at seven. Neal herself would suffer a massive stroke which seemingly would cut short her 15 year, Oscar winning career on film and television. In part she was a trooper(and in part Dahl was a bulldog), but she learned to walk and talk again. In 1968 she staged her comeback in The Subject was Roses, which led to her being nominated for an Academy Award. Her co-stars, Jack Albertson and Martin Sheen, won an Oscar and a received a Golden Globe nomination for their roles.
After The Subject was Roses she created the role Ma Walton, was portrayed by the actress Glenda Jackson in The Patricia Neal Story (Dahl was played by Dirk Bogarde) and was a fierce advocate for paralysis victims. Her own Tony Award, the first ever presented, was lost and she was presented with a "new" award by Billy Irwin in 2006.
Ms. Neal: Old Hollywood and Broadway, solid television performer and a damn stubborn woman.
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