Oscar Profile #25: Patricia Neal

Born January 20, 1926, Patricia Neal’s real life story, only part of which was played out by Glenda Jackson in a 1981 TV movie, was more turbulent and eventful than anything she ever did on screen.

A classically trained actress, the Kentucky native made her Broadway debut as Margaret Sullavan’s understudy in 1943’s The Voice of the Turtle and her featured debut in 1946’s Another Part of the Forest, the prequel to The Little Foxes for which she won a Tony for Best Featured Actress during the first Tony Awards presentation.

She made her film debut in 1949’s John Loves Mary opposite Ronald Reagan with whom she starred in that same year’s The Hasty Heart. Also that year she starred opposite Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead and began a three-year affair with the actor. She suffered a nervous breakdown when he went back to his wife Rocky and daughter Maria after Maria publicly spat at her.

During this period she starred in one of her most enduring films, Robert Wise’s 1951’s sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still opposite Michael Rennie.

She returned to Broadway in a smash hit revival of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour in the role Shirley MacLaine would later play on screen opposite Kim Hunter in Audrey Hepburn’s eventual film role. It was Hellman who introduced her to writer Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) whom she would marry and have five children with.

Although much on TV in the latter part of the 1950s, her only film during this time was Elia Kazan’s 1957 incisive character study, A Face in the Crowd opposite Andy Grifith. By the early sixties she was playing supporting roles, both on stage as the mother in 1959’s The Miracle Worker and then on screen in Blake Edwards’ 1961 comedy classic, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It was during her run in The Miracle Worker that her infant son was struck by a taxi and suffered severe brain damage. Two years later her seven year old daughter died of measles.

Her portrayal of Paul Newman’s housekeeper in Martin Ritt’s 1963 film, Hud, won her an Oscar and her screen career seemed finally headed in the right direction, but while starring in John Ford’s Seven Women, she suffered a series of strokes and had to be replaced by Anne Bancroft. The story of her remarkable recovery, with Dahl’s encouragement, was the subject of the 1981 TV movie, The Patricia Neal Story with Glenda Jackson and Dirk Bogarde.

Neal’s first film after the series of strokes nearly killed her was 1968’s The Subject Was Roses, for which she received another Oscar nomination. She subsequently won a Golden Globe as Olivia Walton in the 1971 TV movie, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, the pilot for the TV series, The Waltons.

Roles throughout the seventies and into the eighties were difficult to come by and by 1983 she had had it with Dahl after she learned of his affair with her supposed best friend at the time. Despondent, she decided to spend some time in France where she ran into Maria Cooper at a hotel. Neal, and Rocky and Maria Cooper had become friends some time after the death of Gary Cooper. Maria’s best friend in the late fifties had been Dolores Hart, the up and coming star who left Hollywood at the height of her career to become a nun. Maria, sensing Neal was in dire need of spiritual guidance, sent her to Hart, now Mother Dolores at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut. There, Neal found the peace she had long been looking for and regained her interest in acting. Indeed, one of her best performances was in 1989’s An Unremarkable Life playing an old maid retired schoolteacher who has an affair with a Japanese-American auto shop owner (Mako) to the chagrin of her highly prejudiced widowed sister (Shelley Winters).

A frequent visitor to, and supporter of, the Abbey of Regina Laudis, Neal converted to Roman Catholicism a few months before her death in August, 2010 at 84, and is buried at the Abbey. As a side note, Mother Dolores Hart, now 72, is the only nun in the Academy of Motion Picture and Arts and Sciences and as such is the only one who gets to vote on the Oscars. This year she likes The Social Network,; The King’s Speech and Toy Story 3.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951), directed by Robert Wise

Neal as a World War II widow who saves the world from annihilation with her humanity is the heart of this science fiction masterpiece. Michael Rennie as the alien Klaatu, Billy Gray as Neal’s impressionable son and Sam Jaffe as a brilliant scientist are also quite good, but without Neal’s central performance I’m not sure this film would have stood the test of time as well as it has.

A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957), directed by Elia Kazan

This expose of a phony, opinionated TV star who manipulates the masses with his charm until the woman who discovered him pulls the rug out from under him is celebrated for Andy Griffith’s tour-de-force performance, but he is matched every step of the way by Neal as the woman who, realizing she has created a monster, finds the perfect way to bring him down.

HUD (1963), directed by Martin Ritt

Neal’s screen time was less than that of Melvyn Douglas who won the year’s Best Supporting Oscar while she won the Best Actress Oscar as the earthy housekeeper who spurns the attentions of amoral lout Paul Newman. She’s gone from the picture after the first thirty minutes but her performance lingers in your mind as you watch the rest of the film. It may have been one of the briefest performances to win a lead Oscar, but it was also one of the best.

THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES (1968), directed by Ulu Grosbard

Neal’s return to the screen after nearly dying from multiple strokes three years earlier was a major triumph. She, Jack Albertson and Martin Sheen are the only players of importance in the film about a battling Bronx Irish couple whose son has just returned home from World War II. All three stars are at their best with Albertson winning the year’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Neal receiving a nomination which was both in honor of her return and her luminous work.

AN UNREMARKABLE LIFE (1989), directed by Armin Q. Chaudhri

As the retired old maid Bronx Irish schoolteacher who has an unexpected, but not unwelcome, romance with Japanese auto repair shop owner Mako, Neal is luminous and touching, especially in her scenes with Shelley Winters as her bigoted, widowed sister. Unfortunately the film was released at the same time as Driving Miss Daisy and Oscar and all the other awards granters had room for only one film about elderly relationships.