Patricia Neal

Maternal great granddaughter of Samuel (1822-1892) and Elizabeth (née Bryant) Petrey (1822-1905). Both were born and raised in the state of Kentucky.

Maternal great granddaughter of Green (1842-1913) and Susan (née Jones) Siler (1845-1913). Both were born and raised in the state of Kentucky.

Maternal granddaughter of Paschal (January 8, 1865-May 12, 1936) and Flora (née Siler) Petrey (January 22, 1871-November 7, 1940). Both were born and raised in the state of Kentucky.

Born to William Burdette Neal (January 29, 1895 - April 16, 1944; born in Virginia) and Eura Mildred (nee Petrey) Neal (September 21, 1899 - February 11, 2003, born in Kentucky), Patsy Louise Neal grew up, with her two siblings, Pete and Margaret Ann, in Knoxville, Tennessee, and graduated from Knoxville High School. The family abounded with nicknames: William Neal was a transportation manager for the Southern Coal and & Coke Co. who acquired his nickname "Coot" because he was "just plain cute" in his earlier years. Eura Mildred Petrey Neal had been named after Eura Hogg, a young woman from a well-known Texan family. Margaret Ann Neal (Patricia Neal's sister) was known as "NiNi Neal".

Patricia Neal, the Oscar and Tony Award-winning actress, was born Patsy Louise Neal in Packard, Kentucky, where her father managed a coal mine and her mother was the daughter of the town doctor. She grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she attended high school. She was first bit by the acting bug at the age of 10, after attending an evening of monologues at a Methodist church. She subsequently wrote a letter to Santa Claus, telling him, "What I want for Christmas is to study dramatics". She won the Tennessee State Award for dramatic reading while she was in high school. She apprenticed at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia, when she was 16-years-old, between her junior and senior years in high school. After studying drama for two years at Northwestern University, she headed to New York City and landed the job as an understudy in The Voice of the Turtle (1947). It was the producer of the play that had her change her name from Patsy Louise to Patricia. After replacing Vivian Vance in the touring company of "Turtle", she won a role in a play that closed in Boston and then appeared in summer stock.

She won the role of the teenage "Regina" in Lillian Hellman's play, Another Part of the Forest (1948), for which she won a Tony Award in 1947. Subsequently, she signed a seven-year contract with Warner Bros.

In the first part of her film career, her most impressive roles were in The Fountainhead (1949), opposite Gary Cooper, with whom she had three-year-long love affair, and in director Robert Wise's sci-fi classic, Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951), which she made at 20th Century-Fox. Warners hadn't been thrilled with her and let her go before her contract was up, so she signed with Fox.

Was just 12 years older than Billy Gray, who played her son in Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951).

She met and married writer, Roald Dahl, in 1953, and they would have five children in 30 years of marriage.

In 1947, Neal won the Tony (Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) Award), Donaldson, Theatre World and New York Dramatic Critics awards for her 1946 Broadway performance as Regina in Lillian Hellman's "Another Part of the Forest" (a prequel to "The Little Foxes"), which she essayed at the tender age of 20. The role made Neal a star. One critic called her "a young Tallulah Bankhead". She was visited backstage by Bankhead -- who had played the middle-aged Regina in the original Broadway production of Hellman's "The Little Foxes" -- and told Neal, "Dahling, you were as good as I was - and if I said you were half as good, it would [still] have been a hell of a compliment!" Before rehearsals began for the 1952 Broadway revival of "The Children's Hour" starring Neal and Kim Hunter, playwright Lillian Hellman hosted a formal party, where Neal met Roald Dahl. They were married nine months later and would have five children: Ophelia Dahl, Lucy Dahl, Theo Dahl, Tessa Dahl, and Olivia Twenty Dahl (born April 20, 1955-died November 17, 1962), who died suddenly from complications of measles encephalitis at the age of seven. Neal and Dahl had numerous grandchildren.

In 1957, she had one of her finest roles in Elia Kazan's parable about the threat of mass-media demagoguery and home-grown fascism in A Face in the Crowd (1957).

Before she had appeared in the movie, Neal had taken over the role of "Maggie" in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), the Broadway smash that had been directed by Kazan.

Returning to the stage, she appeared in the London production of Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) and co-starred with Anne Bancroft in the Broadway production of The Miracle Worker (1962).

Her 5-month-old baby son Theo Dahl suffered severe neurological damage on December 5, 1960, when his carriage (which was being pushed by a nurse) was accidentally crushed between a taxi and a bus in New York City. He survived following several operations.

With her film career stagnating, she returned to Broadway and achieved the success that eluded her in films, appearing in the revival of Hellman's play, The Children's Hour (1961), in 1952.

After appearing in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), she had what was arguably her finest role, as Alma the housekeeper, in Hud (1963) opposite Paul Newman. The film was a hit and Neal won the Best Actress Oscar.

Is one of 6 actresses to have been pregnant at the time of winning the Academy Award; the others are Eva Marie Saint, Meryl Streep, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman. Neal is the only to have not accepted her award in person as a result of her pregnancy. Neal was 8 months pregnant with her daughter Ophelia Dahl when she won the Best Actress Oscar for Hud (1963).

Was in a story segment of The Third Secret (1964) which was removed from the film.

In 1965, she suffered a series of strokes that nearly killed her.

She was filming John Ford's film, 7 Women (1966), at the time, and had to be replaced by Anne Bancroft (who would later take a role she turned down, that of "Mrs.

Robinson" in The Graduate (1967)). Neal was pregnant at the time. She underwent a seven-hour operation on her brain and survived, later delivering her fifth child. She underwent rehabilitation supervised by her husband.

She had turned down The Graduate (1967) as she had not recovered fully from her stroke.

When she returned to the screen, in 1968 in The Subject Was Roses (1968), she suffered from memory problems. According to her director, Ulu Grosbard, "The memory element was the uncertain one. But when we started to shoot, she hit her top level. She really rises to the challenge. She has great range, even more now than before". She received an Oscar nomination for her work. Subsequently, new acting roles equal to her talent were sparse.

She did receive three Emmy nominations, the first for originating the role of "Olivia Walton" in the 1971 TV movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971), that gave birth to the TV show The Waltons (1972).

Was supposed to continue playing the female lead role as Olivia Walton in The Waltons (1972) after the pilot episode, but health problems precluded this and the role went to Michael Learned.

Consolidated into related trivia entry ("Patricia Neal died of lung cancer in 2010, aged 84, at her home in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. She was interred at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Litchfield County, Connecticut, where she was friends with the Reverend Mother Dolores Hart (who had been an actress before entering religious life under the same name, ( Dolores Hart) and where Neal had spent time before becoming a Catholic late in life. She was survived by her four surviving children and her grandchildren: Sophie Dahl (born September 15, 1977), Clover Martha Patricia Kelly (born September 21, 1984), Luke Kelly (aka "Luke James Roald Kelly"; born July 17, 1986), Ned Dahl Donovan (born January 7, 1994) from daughter Tessa Dahl; Phoebe Patricia Rose Faircloth (born November 4, 1988), Chloe Dahl (aka Chloe Michaela Dahl; born September 12, 1990) from daughter Lucy Dahl; Alexa Isabella Dahl (born June 26, 2005) from son Theo Dahl. She also had a grandchild by her daughter, Ophelia Dahl, and Ophelia's partner, Lisa Frantzis.").

Neal and Dahl's ordeal and ultimate victory over her illness made for the television movie The Patricia Neal Story (1981), starring Glenda Jackson and Dirk Bogarde.

Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award (1986).

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7018 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on May 20, 2005.

On March 4, 2007, she received one of the two Lifetime Achievement Awards presented annually by the SunDeis Film Festival at Brandeis University, following a screening of her classic film A Face in the Crowd (1957) (Roy Scheider was the other honoree).

Neal made an appearance at the 2008 Nashville Film Festival to receive the festival's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award.

Appeared on WABC-TV Consumer Line in New York City to deal with a botched contracting job in her bathroom. [March 2009]

In January 2020, she was honored as Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month.