Patricia Neal

 Patricia Neal (January 20, 1926 – August 8, 2010)

She was best known for her film roles as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and middle-aged housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud (1963), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1949, Neal made her film debut in John Loves Mary. That year, Ronald Reagan was her co-star in The Hasty Heart. Her appearance the same year in The Fountainhead coincided with her on-going affair with her married co-star, Gary Cooper. By 1952, Neal had starred with John Garfield in The Breaking Point, The Day the Earth Stood Still with Michael Rennie and Operation Pacific, starring John Wayne. She suffered a nervous breakdown around this time, following the end of her relationship with Cooper, and left Hollywood for New York, returning to Broadway in 1952 for a revival of The Children's Hour. She subsequently appeared in the film A Face in the Crowd (1957, directed by Elia Kazan), and the play The Miracle Worker (1959, directed by Arthur Penn). While pregnant in 1965, Neal suffered three burst cerebral aneurysms, she was in a coma for three weeks, and had to learn how to walk and speak again. Neal died at her home on August 8, 2010, of lung cancer at age 84. She is buried at Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, CT.