Patricia Neal dies of cancer at 84
Actress Patricia Neal, who rebuilt a troubled career to win an Academy Award only to face a more desperate battle for survival when three strokes left her paralysed, has died. She was 84. Neal, who had lung cancer died at her home in Edgartown, Massachusetts on Sunday, said long-time friend Bud Albers, New York Times reported.
In 1964, Neal received an Oscar as best actress for her performance as the tough, shopworn housekeeper who did not succumb to Paul Newman’s amoral charm in Hud. But a year later she had three strokes, leaving her in a coma for three weeks. Although she was semi-paralysed and unable to speak afterward, she learned to walk and talk again. Despite a severely impaired memory that made it difficult to remember dialogue, she returned to the screen in 1968 as the bitter mother who used her son as a weapon against her husband in the screen version of Frank Gilroy’s play The Subject Was Roses. Once again, she was nominated for an Academy Award.
Her career had started at a young age. Before she was 21, she had swept the major acting prizes for her Broadway debut in Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the Forest. She received a Tony, a Donaldson Award and a New York Drama Critics Award.
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