“I can’t see from one eye. I’ve been paralyzed. I’ve fallen down and broken a hip. Stubbornness gets you through the bad times. You don’t give in.”—Actress Patricia Neal (1926-2010), quoted in Aljean Harmetz, “Patricia Neal, An Oscar-Winner Who Endured Tragedy, Dies at 84,” The New York Times, August 10, 2010
Every time you feel sorry for yourself, read about the life of Patricia Neal. Her private struggles were so multitudinous—so mountainous, come to think of it—that they almost made you forget the immense talent and dedication she brought to each of her roles onscreen.
For a long time, I thought Elizabeth Taylor was the gold standard, as far as survival of calamitous events was concerned. Now, I think Neal’s difficulties were even more astounding.
I first became aware of Neal’s work when I watched her Oscar-nominated performance in The Subject Was Roses (1968), in which she played a mother, battling, with a lioness’ quiet but unmistakable fury, with her husband over the affection of their son, a returning young WWII vet. It was a shift away from the more glamorous roles she had played previously, but it was imbued with much of the force of her life experience.
You see, having brought five children into the world, she had learned even more about loss than love. Consider:
* Her four-month son by writer Roald Dahl, Theo, suffered brain damage when his baby carriage was crushed between a taxicab and a bus.
Every time you feel sorry for yourself, read about the life of Patricia Neal. Her private struggles were so multitudinous—so mountainous, come to think of it—that they almost made you forget the immense talent and dedication she brought to each of her roles onscreen.
For a long time, I thought Elizabeth Taylor was the gold standard, as far as survival of calamitous events was concerned. Now, I think Neal’s difficulties were even more astounding.
I first became aware of Neal’s work when I watched her Oscar-nominated performance in The Subject Was Roses (1968), in which she played a mother, battling, with a lioness’ quiet but unmistakable fury, with her husband over the affection of their son, a returning young WWII vet. It was a shift away from the more glamorous roles she had played previously, but it was imbued with much of the force of her life experience.
You see, having brought five children into the world, she had learned even more about loss than love. Consider:
* Her four-month son by writer Roald Dahl, Theo, suffered brain damage when his baby carriage was crushed between a taxicab and a bus.
* The couple’s seven-year-old daughter, Olivia, died two years later of measles encephalitis.
* A year after winning her Best Actress Oscar for Hud (she's in the image accompanying this post, with the co-star she admired so deeply, Paul Newman), pregnant with another child, she suffered three devastating strokes that put her in a coma for three weeks. She learned to walk, speak, and work (despite an impaired memory) again through intensive therapy and the relentless prodding of Dahl.
And there were her catastrophes in love. At the beginning of her film career, Neal had an affair with her married co-star of The Fountainhead, Gary Cooper. At his urging, she aborted her pregnancy—an action she regretted for the rest of her life.
Later, three decades into her marriage, she ended up divorcing Dahl after she discovered he had cheated on her with a longtime friend.
She survived it all, and complemented her great work onscreen with charitable activities for the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center in Knoxville, Tenn., a facility for treating stroke, spinal cord and brain injury patients.
For a fine appreciation of the legacy of this actress—whom I, like so many of her other fans, wish had made many more than her approximately 30 movies—see this post by the unsurpassed film blogger “Self-Styled Siren.”
And there were her catastrophes in love. At the beginning of her film career, Neal had an affair with her married co-star of The Fountainhead, Gary Cooper. At his urging, she aborted her pregnancy—an action she regretted for the rest of her life.
Later, three decades into her marriage, she ended up divorcing Dahl after she discovered he had cheated on her with a longtime friend.
She survived it all, and complemented her great work onscreen with charitable activities for the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center in Knoxville, Tenn., a facility for treating stroke, spinal cord and brain injury patients.
For a fine appreciation of the legacy of this actress—whom I, like so many of her other fans, wish had made many more than her approximately 30 movies—see this post by the unsurpassed film blogger “Self-Styled Siren.”
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