- "Variety", the entertainment newspaper, mistakenly reported in their February 22, 1965 headline that Patricia Neal had died from her multiple strokes five days earlier. In truth, she remained in a coma for 21 days. Pregnant at the time, her daughter, Lucy Dahl, was born healthy. Husband Roald Dahl was credited with helping her rehabilitate after her strokes. He designed her strenuous and intense recovery routines. Her experiences led to her becoming a champion in the rehabilitation field. Her commitment to the rehabilitation center at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center (in her hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee) led the Center to dedicate this in 1978 as the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center.
- Following her two-year debilitating illness and arduous rehabilitation, Neal made her first public appearance in March 1967, in which she spoke to 2,000 people in New York City at a benefit for the New York Association for Brain Injured Children. She also showed up at the 1967 Academy Awards ceremony to present the award for "Best Foreign Film" and received a standing ovation.
- Unhappy with her roles in Hollywood, she was suspended by Warner Bros. for refusing to co-star with Randolph Scott in a western. That and her torrid but futile affair with married actor Gary Cooper, which led to an abortion and nervous collapse, quickened her decision to leave Hollywood and return to New York City where she refocused on theater.
- Neal was offered the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967), but she was nervous about doing such a demanding role so soon after her stroke.
- 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.
- 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).
- Her classmates at Northwestern University included Cloris Leachman, Paul Lynde, Charlotte Rae, Charlton Heston, Martha Hyer and Agnes Nixon.
- Began a relationship with the much older Gary Cooper on the set of The Fountainhead (1949) around 1948. By late 1951, the affair ended and Cooper reconciled with his wife, Veronica "Rocky" Cooper (nee Balfe), an actress known as Sandra Shaw. Their daughter, Maria (later Maria Cooper Janis, wife of Byron Janis), then around 11 or 12 years old, publicly spat at Neal in the street, although many years later, Maria and Veronica (both Catholics) reconciled with Neal, with the former introducing Neal to the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, whose Reverend Mother Dolores Hart had been an actress under the same name (Dolores Hart) before entering religious life. Neal would spend a considerable amount of time at the abbey during troubled periods of her life before becoming a Catholic herself, late in life. (Gary Cooper had become a Catholic very late in his life, also.) As a postscript of their relationship, Cooper and Neal met by chance, and for the last time, in New York in October 1955. She told him, "You broke my heart, Gary. You really did." He tried to explain and justify himself by saying: "You know, baby, I couldn't have hurt Maria for the world", his family having proved more important to him than his feelings for Neal.
- 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.
- 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.
- Patricia Neal always refused to reveal the name of her second husband, the man she married after her divorce with Roahl Dahl.
- On February 5, 1965, while on location filming 7 Women (1965), a pregnant Patricia was bathing daughter Tessa Dahl at a rented home when she suffered a massive, paralyzing stroke, followed by two more. Baby Lucy Dahl was later born healthy but in its aftermath, the actress suffered from partial paralysis, partial blindness, she lost her memory and was unable to speak. Her husband, Roald Dahl, had her undergo extensive therapy back in England, including swimming, walking, memory games and crossword puzzles. She later credited him with bullying and forcing her to get better although she resented it at the time. After he played such a strong and devoted role in her physical and mental recovery from her paralytic illness, Neal divorced her husband, writer Roald Dahl, after discovering his long-term affair with her former close friend, Liccy Dahl (who was married to Charles Reginald Hugh Crosland at the time, her legal married name being Liccy Crosland). Dahl and Crosland married shortly after his divorce from Neal became final, and remained wed until Dahl's death.
- Less than two years after being stricken with a series of serious stroke, she appeared at New York's Waldorf-Astoria in a one-woman show, "An Evening with Patricia Neal".
- Returned to work 2 months after giving birth to her daughter Ophelia Dahl to begin filming In Harm's Way (1965).
- Returned to work 3 months after giving birth to her son Theo Dahl in order to begin filming Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961).
- Was unable to attend The 36th Annual Academy Awards (1964), where she won the Best Actress Oscar for Hud (1963), as she was in England, 8 months pregnant with her daughter Ophelia Dahl.
- 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).
- 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.").
- She has appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and Hud (1963).
- Was 3 months pregnant with her daughter Tessa Dahl when she completed filming A Face in the Crowd (1957).
- Her father, William Burdette Neal, was a transportation manager for a coal company; her mother, Eura Neal, was a bookkeeper.
- Shared an apartment with Jean Hagen in New York City whilst working on Broadway.
- Neal made an appearance at the 2008 Nashville Film Festival to receive the festival's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award.
- Returned to work 6 months after giving birth to her daughter Olivia to begin performing in "A Roomful of Roses" on Broadway.
- Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award (1986).
- 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".
- 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.
- After moving to New York, she earned her first job as a Broadway understudy after only two-and-a-half months of pounding the pavement in the production of "The Voice of the Turtle".
- Was 5 months pregnant with her son Theo Dahl when she completed her run of the Broadway play "The Miracle Worker", in which she played Helen Keller's mother (played by Inga Swenson in the film version).
- Was the 59th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for Hud (1963) at The 36th Annual Academy Awards (1964) on April 13, 1964.
- Survived a near fatal stroke in February 1965 and 3 brain haemorrhages months after winning the Best Actress Oscar for 'Hud'.
- She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7018 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on May 20, 2005.
- Is one of 14 Best Actress Oscar winners to have not accepted their Academy Award in person, Neal's being for Hud (1963). The others are Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Judy Holliday, Vivien Leigh, Anna Magnani, Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Anne Bancroft, Elizabeth Taylor, Maggie Smith, Glenda Jackson and Ellen Burstyn.
- Bottle-fed her daughter Olivia as a baby as a result of suffering from post-natal depression following Olivia's birth. She did go on, however, to breastfeed her other children Tessa Dahl, Theo Dahl, Ophelia Dahl and Lucy Dahl.
- Performed with the Tennessee Valley Players before studying drama at Northwestern University.
- Neal enrolled at Northwestern University as a drama major, but left after two years for New York, where she landed a job as understudy for the two female leads in "Voice of the Turtle", where, at the producer's suggestion she amended her forename from Patsy Louise to simply Patricia.
- Mildred Dunnock served as her matron of honor at her wedding to Roald Dahl on July 2, 1953.
- Appeared on WABC-TV Consumer Line in New York City to deal with a botched contracting job in her bathroom. (March 2009)
- Paternal great granddaughter of Abraham Thomas Neal, who served the Confederacy as a private in Company G of the 53rd Virginia Infantry during the Civil War. The Neal family lived in Pittsylvania County, Virginia at the time. Abraham Neal's unit was involved in Gettysburg and was present at Appomattox.
- Was just 12 years older than Billy Gray, who played her son in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
- Children Tessa born 1957, Ophelia born 1963, Lucy and son Theo.
- Has performed at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia.
- In January 2020, she was honored as Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month.
- 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.
- Was in a story segment of The Third Secret (1964) which was removed from the film.
- Maternal great granddaughter of Samuel (1822-1892) and Elizabeth (née Bryant) Petrey (1822-1905). Both were born and raised in the state of Kentucky.
- She never appeared in a film nominated for Best Picture Academy Award.
- Her first daughter Olivia died from measles aged 3.
- When her mother and brother came from Tennessee to live with her in California 1948, Neal took out a $100,000 insurance policy with Lloyd's of London that she would not regain her native southern drawl, which she had worked hard to lose.
- Maternal great granddaughter of Green (1842-1913) and Susan (née Jones) Siler (1845-1913). Both were born and raised in the state of Kentucky.
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