Who is Patricia Neal?
Patricia Neal was raised in Knoxville, where she appeared in school plays and by high school was spending her vacations in summer stock performances in Virginia. After graduation, she briefly attended Northwestern University, but dropped out and came to New York, where she made her Broadway debut at 20, in Lillian Hellman`s Another Part of the Forest. Her performance won Neal her first Tony Award for Best Actress, and she soon signed a contract with Warner Brothers and came to Hollywood. In her film debut, she played Ronald Reagan`s fianc in the rather unfunny comedy John Loves Mary. During and after starring in her second film, Ayn Rand`s The Fountainhead, she had a five-year affair with her co-star Gary Cooper, ending it only when she came to realize he would not leave his wife. In one of the great science fiction films, 1951`s The Day the Earth Stood Still, she saved the world by uttering the words: “Klaatu barada nikto.” In A Face in the Crowd, she was treated poorly by Andy Griffi
