KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Patricia Neal, the willowy, husky- voiced actress who won an Academy Award for 1963’s “Hud” and then survived several strokes to continue acting, died Sunday. She was 84.
Neal had lung cancer and died at her home in Edgartown, Mass., on Martha’s Vineyard, said longtime friend Bud Albers of Knoxville.
Neal was already an award- winning Broadway actress when she won her Oscar for her role as a housekeeper to the Texas father (Melvyn Doug las) battling his selfish, amoral son (Paul Newman).
Less than two years after winning the Academy Award, she suffered a series of strokes at age 39. Her struggle to regain the ability to walk and talk is regarded as epic in the annals of stroke rehabilitation. She returned to the screen to earn another Oscar nomination and three Emmy nominations.
The Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center, which concentrates on helping people recover from strokes and spinal- cord and brain injuries, is in Knoxville, where she grew up.
“She never forgot us after she went to Hollywood,” said the 85-year-old Albers, who graduated with Neal from Knoxville High School in 1943.
Whenever she was in town, her friends would always get together, Albers said. Her family let him know of her death.
“She was so courageous,” he said of her battling back from her illnesses and losing her 7-year-old daughter to measles in 1962. “She always fought back. She was very much an inspiration.”
Friends said her sorrows gave her an inner toughness that brought new power to her screen portrayals.
“I don’t lie down. … I’m fightin’ all the way,” she said in 1999.
