This photograph has always resonated with me since I was a kid. It represented an ideal image of glamour, love, family, and grace. It was years before I fell for Patricia Neal again as the strong counterpoint to Paul Newman's roughneck Hud, and I had no idea of the immense tragedy in her life, hidden behind this idyllic image.

Her long, tumultuous marriage to Roald Dahl ended with his affair with her best friend. She lost one daughter to measles and nearly lost a son to a carriage accident. When pregnant with her fifth child she lapsed into a coma from which she emerged having to relearn how to walk and talk.

She always portrays spirited women, and must be a very spirited woman herself. You can witness her on-screen aura not only in the the aforementioned Hud (which is so fabulous!) but also in 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Face in the Crowd (with Lee Remick), Breakfast at Tiffany's, and The Fountainhead (where she met and carried on an affair with Gary Cooper).

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Posted on February 4, 2008