25 Facts About Patricia Neal

Patricia Neal was born to William Neal and Eura Neal.

Patricia Neal featured as the matriarch in the television film The Homecoming: A Christmas Story ; her role as Olivia Walton was re-cast for the series it inspired, The Waltons.

Patricia Neal grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she attended Knoxville High School, and studied drama at Northwestern, where she was a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority.

Patricia Neal gained her first job in New York as an understudy in the Broadway production of the John Van Druten play The Voice of the Turtle.

Patricia Neal made her film debut with Ronald Reagan in John Loves Mary, followed by another role with Reagan in The Hasty Heart, and then The Fountainhead.

Patricia Neal starred with John Garfield in The Breaking Point, in The Day the Earth Stood Still with Michael Rennie, and in Operation Pacific starring John Wayne.

Patricia Neal suffered a nervous breakdown around this time, following the end of her relationship with Cooper, and left Hollywood for New York, returning to Broadway in 1952 for a revival of The Children's Hour.

Patricia Neal won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Hud, co-starring with Paul Newman.

Patricia Neal was re-united with John Wayne in Otto Preminger's In Harm's Way, winning her second BAFTA Award.

Patricia Neal starred as the matriarch in the television film The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, which inspired the television series The Waltons; she won a Golden Globe for her performance.

Patricia Neal played a dying widowed mother trying to find a home for her three children in an episode of NBC's Little House on the Prairie broadcast in 1975.

Patricia Neal appeared in a series of television commercials in the 1970s, notably for pain relief medicine Anacin and Maxim instant coffee.

Patricia Neal played the title role in Robert Altman's movie Cookie's Fortune.

Patricia Neal worked on Silvana Vienne's movie Beyond Baklava: The Fairy Tale Story of Sylvia's Baklava, appearing as herself in the portions of the documentary talking about alternative ways to end violence in the world.

Patricia Neal was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2003.

Patricia Neal was a subject of the British television show This Is Your Life in 1978 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at a cocktail party on London's Park Lane.

Patricia Neal met British writer Roald Dahl at a dinner party hosted by Lillian Hellman in 1952, while Dahl was living in New York.

Patricia Neal described the two years of family life during Theo's recovery as one of the most beautiful periods of her life.

Patricia Neal suffered three burst cerebral aneurysms while pregnant in 1965 and was in a coma for three weeks.

Patricia Neal subsequently relearned to walk and talk and gave birth to a healthy daughter on August 4,1965.

Patricia Neal regularly visited the center in Knoxville, providing encouragement to its patients and staff.

Patricia Neal appeared as the center's spokeswoman in advertisements until her death.

Patricia Neal died at her home in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, on August 8,2010, from lung cancer.

Patricia Neal had become a Catholic four months before she died and was buried in the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, where the actress Dolores Hart, her friend since the early 1960s, had become a nun and ultimately prioress.

Patricia Neal had been a longtime supporter of the abbey's open-air theatre and arts program.