Actress Patricia Neal has passed away, at age 84.She had a long career in movies and on stage, interrupted by a series of strokes when she was in her late thirties, but from which she came back to continue working, a testament to rehab and her spirit.
She won an Oscar™ opposite Paul Newman, in Hud, and starred in a slew of movies and on Broadway. She had an infamous (at the time) affair with Gary Cooper that ran hot during the filming of The Fountainhead, in 1949, in which she played the lead female role of Dominique Francon. She was twenty-one when she met Cooper, he was forty-six. She got pregnant, but Cooper, married at the time, convinced her to have an abortion. It was quite the scandal.
She turned down the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate.
A long and illustrious career -- but I and a lot of hardcore science fiction fans will remember her most for her turn as Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Adiós, Patricia.
I really liked Patricia Neal in - In Harms Way or anything for that matter - It was the first movie I remember seeing her in as a kid.
ReplyDeleteWhen Star Trek Voyager came along I thought Kate Mulgrew's voice reminded me of Miss Neal's - enough to wonder if they were related.