A Woman on the Verge

When I started this blog, I had no intention that it become a a sort of "celebrity obituary" cyber-spot. However, as each month goes by, it seems we lose one celebrated "golden era" figure after another; iconic personalities whose talent, personality and class helped define what we now term the era of "Classic Hollywood". This was highlighted during last week’s Emmy Awards ceremony, when we bid farewell to the likes of Lena Horne, Lynne Redgrave, and of course, Rue McClanahan (see my June 2010 tribute below). And then, there was the great Patricia Neal.

In a career that spanned over sixty years, Neal played everything from sultry cosmopolitan sirens to stoic mountain women. Today, she is probably best remembered for her high profile turns in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), or her Oscar-winning performance in Hud (1963). My first recollection of Neal, however, was in a modest television movie called The Homecoming (1971), in which she played the depression-era matriarch of an impoverished mountain family named Walton. With her elongated cadence ("Jahhnn-boy") and the sad but undefeated look in her dark eyes, she reminded me of some not-so-distant relatives from my mother's side of the family (the ones that my father often referred to as"those hillbillies"). But even more than her vocal perfection, her physicality suggested a woman that had been broken and by sheer force of will had put herself back together again (later I was to find out that this was very much the case for Neal, herself). I had no idea who this woman was, but she seemed to channel the spirit of these down but determined people whom I knew so well. Her performance haunted me for many years.

And then, I saw The Fountainhead.

At first, I could not believe that this young woman playing the fiery and imperious Dominique in King Vidor's controversial 1949 classic could possibly have been the same woman who played the elemental and stoic Olivia Walton. And then, I saw the glint of steel in the young woman's eyes, and I knew that indeed, she was one and the same. This was the defining attribute that Patricia Neal brought to all the characters she portrayed. Even in her most "throw-away" performances, there is an underlying current of power - a gravitas - which almost always made her characters distinctive and startling.

Patricia Neal was never the standard Hollywood leading lady. In the great tradition of Frances Farmer and Tallulah Bankhead, she confounded studio executives who were never sure what to do with her. When she arrived in Hollywood, she was most likened to the sultry young Lauren Bacall, but did not possess that actress' sexual aloofness, nor her emotional stability. Neal had a seething sensuality that seemed at times seemed ready to overtake her; she was frequently a woman on the verge of a sexual breakdown. This quality informed her performances to a degree uncomfortable to the Mayers, Warners and Cohns. Watch her as she excitedly sizes up the young Andy Griffith in A Face In the Crowd (1957), her eyes and sexual appetite growing larger by the second. Or in Hud, as the world-weary housekeeper who just barely suppresses her sexual desire for both Paul Newman and Brandon De Wilde. As Newman tosses sexual innuendos her way, her eyes linger a bit too long on his lean frame, giving the distinct impression that their eventual coupling is just a matter of time. Or, more startlingly, as she rustles the adolescent De Wilde out of bed for breakfast, and her wrestling becomes a bit more aggressive when he tells her that he is naked beneath the sheets.

On-screen she was a woman who was guided by her appetites; off-screen she was guided by her own moral compass, and gave little regard to the standards of "morality" espoused by the Hollywood community. Her infamous extra-marital affair with Fountainhead co-star Gary Cooper led to public condemnation, abortion, and eventually a nervous breakdown and self-imposed exile from Hollywood. A return to the stage and a stabilizing marriage to writer Roald Dahl brought much needed grounding to the actress. It also brought about a return to Hollywood’s good graces, and in a particularly pallid season, Neal won the 1963 Best Actress Oscar for Hud, even though her role was essentially a supporting one.

Later, after rising like a phoenix from a series near fatal strokes, the sexual undercurrent was replaced by steely resolve. This was a woman who had literally been broken and by sheer force of will, had put herself back together again. This quality was highlighted no more eloquently than in her "comeback" performance in The Subject Was Roses (1968). As Nettie, she is both victim and victimizer – a woman who cloaks the bitterness she feels over her life’s disappointments in passive-aggressive manipulation of those around her. It is a stunning performance that is halting in its simple power and poignancy-- and it earned Neal another Oscar nomination. Unlike 1963, however, the competition for the 1968 Best Actress Academy Award was arguably the most formidable in Oscar history. When the winning performance was announced, it was a tie between Katharine Hepburn's monumental turn in The Lion In Winter, and Barbra Streisand's phenomenal film debut in Funny Girl. Up against these two iconic characterizations, Neal's quiet but steely performance did not stand a chance.

Undeterred, Neal continued to work in television and films up until the final year of her life. Throughout the remaining years, she remained a beacon of talent and courage not just in her career, but in her life (her autobiography, As I Am, was published in 1988). She remains a shining example of what best personifies "Classic Hollywood".

Patricia Neal: 1926 - 2010