Patricia Neal

Patricia Louise Neal was born in Packard Kentucky on January 20, 1926. She was a coal-miner's daughter, Tony and Oscar award winning actress. She started her acting career at the age of 10 and won an award for dramatic reading in high school. When Patricia was 16 she apprenticed at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia.

Patricia headed to New York to work as an understudy in The Voice of the Turtle, replaced Vivian Vance in the touring company of Turtle and won a role in Another Part of the Forest (1947). Patrician won a Tony Award in 1947 for her role in this play.

She acted in The Fountainhead opposite Gary Cooper (her love at the time) and in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Patricia returned to Broadway and appeared in The Children's House (1952). She married Roald Dahl, the author, in 1953 and together they had five children during their 30-year marriage.

In 1963 Patricia Neal played opposite Paul Newman in Hud and won an Oscar for Best Actress. In 1965 Patricia suffered several stokes and was unable to work. She did not return to film until 1968 where she was offered a role in The Subject Was Roses. In 1971 Patricia played Olivia Walton in the TV movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story. This move spawned the TV show The Waltons.

Patricia championed those who needed rehabilitation and made donations to the Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center. The rehabilitation center at Fort Sanders, The Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center stands as a monument to her memory. Patricia died on August 8, 2010 of lung cancer at her home in Edgartown, Massachusetts.