You know, sometimes the most remarkable people are the ones who can balance being a Hollywood legend and still find joy in the simple things in life. That’s exactly who Patricia Neal was. She was a Tony and Oscar-winning powerhouse who shared the screen with some of the biggest names in cinema history—John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and Tyrone Power. But despite all that glitz and glamour, she never lost her love for quiet nights at home. "We’d watch movies over at her house, and we’d laugh, and we’d cry, and we’d talk about films," recalls Stephen Michael Shearer, author of Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life. He shares with Closer about the intimate moments they spent together, whether it was in her cozy New York apartment or her peaceful home in Martha’s Vineyard.
Here's the thing about Patricia Neal—she wasn’t just a star on the big screen; she was a genuinely lovely, down-to-earth person. "Pat was a lovely, approachable woman. Anybody who knew her knew that by the end of a conversation, she would know more about you than you knew about her," Shearer reflects. Neal, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 84, lived a life filled with both extraordinary triumphs and devastating heartaches. And through it all, she remained a beacon of grace and resilience.
Let me tell you a little about her journey. Patricia Neal was born in a coal-mining town in Kentucky and raised in Tennessee. Her path to stardom began on Broadway, where she quickly made a name for herself. It wasn’t long before she set her sights on Hollywood. At just 23 years old, she landed a dream role in the 1949 film The Fountainhead, starring opposite the legendary Gary Cooper. The two even had a three-year affair. "Pat told me an awful lot about Gary Cooper, none of which I could publish, but she told me that indeed he was the most beautiful man she had ever met," Shearer reveals. That’s the kind of insight you get when you’re close to someone like Patricia Neal—she had stories that could captivate anyone.
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Love, Family, and Overcoming Adversity
By 1953, Neal had married the brilliant British author Roald Dahl, and together they had five children. But life wasn’t always easy for this talented woman. Even before she won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in 1963’s Hud, she faced challenges that tested her strength and resolve. In 1960, her son Theo, who was only four months old, suffered brain damage in a tragic traffic accident in New York. Just two years later, her eldest child, Olivia, died at the age of seven from measles encephalitis. And if that wasn’t enough, in 1965, while pregnant, Neal suffered a series of debilitating strokes that left her in a coma for three weeks. Life threw her some curveballs, but Patricia Neal wasn’t one to give up easily.
Her Indomitable Spirit
“Variety even published that Patricia Neal had died,” Shearer recounts of the terrifying period when Neal had to relearn how to walk and talk after her strokes. “She even admitted that when she came out of the coma, she didn’t know who her children were.” But Patricia Neal wasn’t one to let life knock her down without a fight. After divorcing Dahl in 1983, she dedicated herself to regaining her health and career, often inspiring others along the way.
Shearer remembers a 2000 charity event on Martha’s Vineyard for children with learning disabilities where Neal’s kindness truly shone. “Patricia was communicating with them, touching them, holding them, talking with them and laughing with them,” he says. “They didn’t know who she was. They just knew she was a nice lady. She really got [involved] with those children and let them know that they were loved.”
That’s what made Patricia Neal so special—her unwavering spirit and compassion. “I miss her presence. I miss the fact that she was a very strong-willed woman, but very vulnerable at the same time,” Shearer says. “Every time I talk to somebody and they want to know what Patricia Neal was like, I tell them she was just like you and me—a very, very real person.”
