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Oscar-Winner Patricia Neal Dies at Age 84

The AP obit is below and points to the many highlights in Patricia Neal’s career and lowlights in her admittedly difficult and often tragic personal life. It’s well worth reading, as is her unflinching autobiography “As I Am,” which she wrote in 1988. Like most Hollywood stars, Neal’s life was one filled with illicit love affairs, nervous breakdowns, and divorce. But she also lost a young child in1962 and another was permanently brain damaged after being hit by a car. While pregnant in 1965, Neal suffered a stroke so terrible she had to learn how to walk and talk all over again.

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Neal’s most famous love affair was with Gary Cooper during the filming of the “The Fountainhead” in 1949. She was 20, he was 45 and married. After Cooper’s wife found out the affair ended but Neal discovered she was pregnant. Worried about the effect such a thing would have on her burgeoning career (especially after “Fountainhead” flopped) and with the urging of Cooper, Neal aborted the unborn child. In her autobiography, Neal makes no secret of the fact that this abortion was the great regret of her life. For the next thirty years she cried herself to sleep over it and wrote:

“If I had only one thing to do over in my life, I would have that baby.”

Later in life, Neal returned to the Catholic faith and became a strong pro-life advocate.

While her best role is probably the one for which she won the Oscar in 1963, as Alma, the mature and very sexy housekeeper in “Hud” who represents the redemption Paul Newman’s alienated character just can’t bring himself to accept, I’d also recommend “Operation Pacific” (1951) and “In Harm’s Way” (1965). In both she co-stars with John Wayne and proves to be one of those rare leading ladies capable of projecting as much strength as he did. Neither is a classic, but the star chemistry alone makes them worthwhile.

One truly under-rated classic of hers, however, is 1949’s “The Hasty Heart,” with Ronald Reagan and Oscar-nominee Richard Todd. Set in 1945 in the days just after the end of the war, Neal plays Sister Parker, the head nurse in charge of a Burma field hospital with one patient (Todd) who doesn’t know he won’t be going home. Todd’s performance is unforgettably moving but Neal is heart at the center of it all.

Thanks to a husky voice and an unconventional beauty that projected sex and intelligence in equal parts, Neal stood out in a Hollywood that was then crowded with future immortals. No small thing. Great star. Great actress. Classy lady.

Today’s Associated Press:

Patricia Neal, the willowy, husky-voiced actress who won an Academy Award for 1963’s “Hud” and then survived several strokes to continue acting, died on Sunday. She was 84.

Neal had lung cancer and died surrounded by her family at her home in Edgartown, Mass., on Martha’s Vineyard.

“She faced her final illness as she had all of the many trials she endured: with indomitable grace, good humor and a great deal of her self-described stubbornness,” her family said in a statement.

Neal was already an award-winning Broadway actress when she won her Oscar for her role as a housekeeper to the Texas father (Melvyn Douglas) battling his selfish, amoral son (Paul Newman).

Less than two years later, she suffered a series of strokes in 1965 at age 39. Her struggle to once again walk and talk is regarded as epic in the annals of stroke rehabilitation. She returned to the screen to earn another Oscar nomination and three Emmy nominations.

The Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center that helps people recover from strokes and spinal cord and brain injuries is named for her in Knoxville, where she grew up.

Read the full article here.


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