Patricia Neal, while not my favorite actress, had a strong quality to her roles. Best Actress winner for "Hud", and great in other roles in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", "the day the Earth stood still", "the Fountainhead", and "a face in the crowd." But it's her personal life of ups and downs that got my attention. I remember in the 80s she did commercials for Anacin pain relief medicine, and when she spoke she had a slight bit of talking from the side of her mouth. That's when my parents explained that she had suffered several strokes at age 39, her face/body partially paralyzed, and she had to learn to walk and talk all over again. That she made such a recovery, is to this day amazing. She also had several children with her husband famous children's author Roald Dahl (author of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "James and the Giant Peach", "the Witches", "Matilda" and "the Fantastic Mr. Fox") one daughter dying at age 7 from measles, and another child hit as an infant in his baby carriage by a taxi, suffering brain damage. But she always picked herself up from each tragedy and carried on. She and Dahl divorced in 1990 after she caught him in an affair with her best friend. Sad. But she wasn't perfect either and in her younger Hollywood days, at age 21, she had an affair with married Gary Cooper. But I'll always remember her for her small part in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" as Paul's "decorator" keeping him as her boytoy until he meets Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. He says to her "You're a stylish girl, can't we end this stylishly?" She answers "You're right. I am a very stylish girl." Someone even made her line into a song...
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