Actress Patricia Neal at Bay Street

By Debbie Tuma

She has starred in numerous plays and movies with such handsome leading men as Paul Newman, Ronald Reagan, and Gary Cooper. She won a Tony Award for the play Another Part of the Forest, and also an Oscar Award for the movie Hud. And after more than half a century as a leading actress on screen and stage, the legendary Patricia Neal is now coming to the stage of Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor on November 8.

Neal, who rose to fame in 1947, will take the stage to talk about her life and films, following the screening of A Face in the Crowd, one of her black and white movies, from 1957. Written by Budd Schulberg, of Westhampton, this film also starred Andy Griffith and was directed by Elia Kazan.

"It's a really good movie, made long ago," said Neal. "It's about a Southern girl and boy, and he's in jail, and I get him out by telling him a story. He becomes famous, but in the end, he becomes a horror. I play the Southern girl, who is a newspaper reporter."

Following the screening of this old film, Neal will talk about this movie and her career. This film will be shown as part of the ever-popular "Picture Show at Bay Street," presented by BookHampton.

By 1949, Neal was seen in major motion pictures, including The Fountainhead, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Hud, which garnered her numerous awards in 1963, from the coveted Oscar to the NY Film Critics Circle Award, the National Board of Review, the Golden Laurel and a Golden Globe nomination. That same year, she also won the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress in a Leading Role for The Subject Was Roses.

Neal was also recognized for her Emmy-Award-winning roles in such television programs as "The Home Coming: A Christmas Story," "Tail Gunner Joe" and "All Quiet on the Western Front."

Playing a Southern girl in the upcoming movie at Bay Street is not a far stretch for Neal, who was born in a small mining town in Kentucky, near the Tennessee border. She grew up in Knoxville, and her father grew up on a tobacco farm. As a young girl, she saw a woman reading monologues at her church, and she decided she wanted to do that for a living.

"I saw her reading monologues and my heart pounded," said Neal. "I guess I always wanted to be an actress, ever since I saw a play in Knoxville, TN, and knew this is what I wanted to do when I grew up."

She studied drama lessons from her father's boss's daughter, who taught acting, and later she studied with the Tennessee Valley Players, followed by the Barter Theater in Virginia. She also studied acting at Northwestern University for two years, before going to the Alvin Krausse Summer Theatre, and on to the big lights of New York City. Here she roomed with her friend and fellow actress Helen Horton, who is now deceased.

When asked what some of her favorite movie roles were, she listed John Loves Mary, one of two films she starred in with Ronald Reagan.

"He was going through a divorce then, from his first wife, actress Jane Wyman, and he was heart-broken," said Neal, who also went to England with Reagan to play in the film, Hasty Heart.

Neal said she loved acting opposite Reagan. "He was a very talented actor, and we got on very well. He was handsome and easy going," she said. "My first love was Gary Cooper, who I played opposite in The Fountainhead. And when I first saw Paul Newman at the Actor's Studio, I couldn't take my eyes off him. He was so devastatingly handsome. All I did was stare at him. He was a honey. I also knew his wife, Joanne, and I felt so badly when he recently died. I sent my sympathies and got a note back from his wife."

Neal also acted on stage in The Children's Hour, a play by Lillian Hellman. After her relationship with the much older Cooper ended, she married well-known Norwegian writer Roald Dahl, and they had five children. Their oldest child, sadly, died of measles at age seven. Dahl wrote numerous short stories and children's books, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. Their marriage lasted 30 years.

Throughout her 82 years, Neal has had to overcome several obstacles, from the early death of her oldest child, to strokes she suffered, which left her in a coma for 21 days, in 1965, when she was also pregnant. Somehow, she managed to survive, and gave birth to her second daughter.

Her struggle to come back from her debilitating stroke was chronicled in the film, The Patricia Neal Story, starring Glenda Jackson. She was offered the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, in 1967, but she was nervous about taking on such a demanding role after her stroke. Her husband was credited with helping her rehabilitate after her strokes by designing her recovery routines. She has become a champion in the rehabilitation field, with her work at the Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center in Knoxville.

Her career continued to thrive, and she was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role in 1968 for The Subject Was Roses.

"I starred in this movie with Jack Albertson, who played my husband, and won Best Supporting Actor, and Martin Sheen, who played my son, and it was one of his first roles on his way to becoming a famous actor," said Neal, who lives in New York City.

In her spare time, Neal loves to go on cruises with the Theatre Guild, where she's a member. "I love the sea, and being on the water," she explained. "That is why I have a home on Martha's Vineyard, where I go in the summer." She has visited the Hamptons, and looks forward to returning to Sag Harbor, another great seaport community, for her movie screening on November 8, at 8 p.m., at Bay Street Theatre. Tickets are $25, and can be purchased in advance at the box office, by calling 631-725-9500 or at www.baystreet.org.

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