Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life [Hardcover]

Stephen Michael Shearer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 2006

The internationally acclaimed actress Patricia Neal has been a star on stage, film, and television for nearly sixty years. On Broadway she appeared in such lauded productions as Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest, for which she won the very first Tony Award, and The Miracle Worker. In Hollywood she starred opposite the likes of Ronald Reagan, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Paul Newman, Fred Astaire, and Tyrone Power in some thirty films. Neal anchored such classic pictures as The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Face in the Crowd, and Breakfast at Tiffany's, but she is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Alma Brown in Hud, which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1963. But there has been much, much more to Neal's life. She was born Patsy Louise Neal on January 20, 1926, in Packard, Kentucky, though she spent most of her childhood in Knoxville, Tennessee. Neal quickly gained attention for her acting abilities in high school, community, and college performances. Her early stage successes were overshadowed by the unexpected death of her father in 1944. Soon after she left New York for Hollywood in 1947, Neal became romantically involved with Gary Cooper, her married co-star in The Fountainhead, an attachment which brought them both a great deal of notoriety in the press and a great deal of heartache in their personal lives. In 1953, Neal married famed children's author Roald Dahl, a match that would bring her five children and thirty years of dramatic ups and downs. In 1961, their son, Theo, was seriously injured in an automobile accident and required multiple neurosurgeries and years of rehabilitation; the following year their daughter, Olivia, died of measles. At the pinnacle of her screen career, Patricia Neal suffered a series of strokes which left her in a coma for twenty-one days. Variety even ran a headline erroneously stating that she had died. At the time, Neal was pregnant with her and Dahl's fifth child, Lucy, who was born healthy a few months later. After a difficult recovery, Neal returned to film acting, earning a second Academy Award nomination for The Subject Was Roses. She appeared in a number of television movie roles in the 1970s and 1980s and won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Dramatic TV Movie in 1971 for her role in The Homecoming. Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life is the first critical biography detailing the actress's impressive film career and remarkable personal life. Author Stephen Michael Shearer has conducted numerous interviews with Neal, her professional colleagues, and her intimate friends and was given access to the actress's personal papers. The result is an honest and comprehensive portrait of an accomplished woman who has lived her life with determination and bravado.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Screen legend Neal's life was filled with tragedies and triumphs, and Shearer unveils an impressive portrait of the actress, revered for her roles in such memorable movies as A Face in the Crowd and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Born in Kentucky in 1926, Neal began her drama studies at the age of 11 in Knoxville and was a professional by age 19, possessing a fiercely ambitious drive when she arrived on Broadway as an understudy in 1945. After she won a 1947 Tony Award for Another Part of the Forest, Hollywood beckoned. Over five decades, she made more than 30 feature films, including her Oscar-winning performance in Hud. After her emotional affair with Gary Cooper led to an abortion, she married writer Roald Dahl in 1953. Neal suffered massive strokes in 1965, yet made her much-publicized screen comeback three years later in The Subject Was Roses. In addition to extensive interviews and a detailed appendix, the book benefits from Shearer's access to Neal's personal archives of reviews, scrapbooks and letters. She also supplied at least 50 of the 123 photos seen here. Readers of As I Am, Neal's 1988 memoir, will seek out this biography for more of the actress's absorbing and inspirational story. (June)
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Review

""This impressively researched biography of film actress Patricia Neal covers an immensity of material." --(Salt Lake City) Deseret News" --

""Shearer delivers an inspiring look at the professional triumphs and personal tragedies that define one of Hollywood's legendary stars." --Des Moines Regiser" --

""Patricial Neal has traveled the road from tirumph to despair in ways few of us can imagine. There is sincerity and dedication behind this work." --Paul Newman" --

""Screen legend Neal's life was filled with tragedies and triumphs, and Shearer unveils an impressive portrait of the actress.... Readers of As I Am, Neal's 1988 memoir, will seek out this biography for more of the actress's absorbing and inspirational story." --Publishers Weekly" --

""Digs into the amazing first 80 years in the life of one of our national treasures.... Neal is still a great force of nature, and Shearer's book documents all her ups, downs, traumas and triumphs." --Robert Osborne, Hollywood Reporter, Reuters" --

""A tour de force biography." --Louisville Courier-Journal" --

""Her life has had so many tragic twists it makes for compelling reading." --Variety" --

""A solid biography." --Washington Post Book World" --

""Shearer explores Neal's fascinating acting career and personal life, her marriage to children's author Roald Dahl, and her amazing dedication and bravado that has marked her film legacy." --Celebrity Café" --

""A rich record of a life, and of the time and places in which that life was lived." --Toronto Globe and Mail" --

""One can see plainly while reading this book that it was a real labor of love. Anyone interested in movies as well as U.S. social history will treasure this volume about an extraordinary actress and lady." --Bowling Green Daily News" --

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 508 pages
• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky (May 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813123917
• ISBN-13: 978-0813123912
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #472,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

STEPHEN MICHAEL SHEARER (born Stephen R. Sypult on January 21) grew up in Illinois, Michigan and Arkansas. At age 11 he wrote his first play, Hellen and Ellen in the Wilderness. For several years he has contributed film research to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He directed his first film, Sylvia and Sally of the Sand Dunes, while in college where he earned a B.S.E. in music and a minor in psychology. He hosted the CBS-affiliate afternoon TV show, "The Movies", while also in school, and wrote film and book reviews for such national publications as Film Collector's Registry. Mr. Shearer is also a former model and actor. He has appeared on television (Dallas, Central Park West, etc.) and has starred off-Broadway (in the Samuel French Award-winning play The Appointment, etc.). He also directed the New York stage success The Last of September. He has acted in films, beginning with Split Image (1982) with Elizabeth Ashley and Peter Fonda, and the more recent Flying By (2009) with Patricia Neal and Billy Ray Cyrus. His first book is the critically acclaimed best-seller Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life (University Press of Kentucky, 2006), considered the definitive biography of the beloved actress, his long-time friend and muse. Mr. Shearer has also penned a series of distinctive biographical profiles for The Las Vegas Review-Journal, "The Legendary Las Vegas Headliners" (2008-2009), and has written a personal novel, September. His most recent book is the stunning biography Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2010). Mr. Shearer lives in the Twin Cities in Minnesota and New York, and is now writing two new comprehensive film histories.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Celebratory Portrait of a Revered Actress Far Too Often Overlooked, July 14, 2006

By 

Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life (Hardcover)

I just saw Patricia Neal's superlative performance in Elia Kazan's still-amazing "A Face in the Crowd" for the first time on DVD this past week and was reminded what a searing screen presence she could be. Author Stephen Michael Shearer, a former actor and longtime friend of Neal's, has seen fit to write a comprehensive biography of the actress just as she turns eighty this year. Her work is definitely worth revisiting, and what's more, her life is thick enough with professional triumphs and personal traumas to justify the rather expansive 441-page length. It's obvious why Shearer has taken such an interest in the actress's fascinating life, and he can certainly be guilty of providing a fair amount of fawning to go along with his sharp insights, especially in the early parts of the book.

With her striking beauty and throaty bluegrass-tinged voice, Neal achieved success early, first hitting big on Broadway in Lillian Hellman's "Little Foxes" prequel, "Another Part of the Forest", and then scooped up by Hollywood in 1949. In short order, she co-starred as headstrong Dominique Francon in the lavish, highly flawed adaptation of Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" and immediately embarked on a five-year affair with screen legend Gary Cooper, very married and a quarter century older. While it was not quite the level of the Ingrid Bergman-Roberto Rossellini scandal happening at almost the same time, Neal still faced not only a cold-blooded industry but also an unwanted abortion and ultimately a nervous breakdown despite strong early impressions in 1950's "The Breaking Point" (said to be Hemingway's favorite adaptation of his work) and the 1951 sci-fi classic, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (uttering her famous words -"Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!"). Neal married famed children's author Roald Dahl after the Cooper affair ended. As she started to raise a family, she made a comeback in Kazan's masterwork which led to her feline turn as the interior decorator in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and her Oscar-winning performance as the sensual, worldly wise housekeeper Alma in "Hud".

Despite her impressive professional success, the most interesting, obviously devastating parts of the book occur after her career peak in "Hud" when she tragically suffered three burst cerebral aneurisms while pregnant. Dahl was her constant, goading caretaker but also the source of escalating personal pain as he embarked on an extramarital affair that finally ended their marriage after thirty years in 1983. Shearer covers these years in great detail, but I think his portrayal of Neal's obviously complex relationship with Dahl could have delved somewhat deeper into the impact of the strokes and the death of their first child on both parties. The author also remains light on the facts that could have precluded Neal's medical condition at the time, even though her long-term recovery is covered in painstaking detail here. Afterward, she was able to turn in stellar work in 1968's "The Subject Was Roses" and 1971's "The Homecoming", the precursor to the long-running TV series, "The Waltons". Overall, the author's admiration for his subject remains uncompromised, and he succeeds in painting a celebratory portrait of an actress who never seems to get her due.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Read About A VERY Interesting Person, January 1, 2008

By 

Joseph Albanese "The Joe Show" (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life (Hardcover)

Stephen Michael Shearer has endeavored to tell the story of movie icon Pat Neal in a no-nonsense, "loose the frills" way.

By now, there isn't a movie buff around who does not know about the Patricia Neal/ Gary Cooper romance. Unlike others who might make it seem holy or even downright tawdry, the author gives us the facts and dates and skips the frills and sermons. Good.

However, especially in dealing with such an interesting subject as Ms. Neal, the author should be taken to task for not probing a bit below the surface. He gives us facts (and there is little to doubt the accuracy) but not reasons. One case in point: When Pat Neal's husband - Roald Dahl - began having affairs, their children sided with their father to the point where it was suggested that Ms. Neal "not bother to come home for the Christmas holidays". Disturbing and interesting but the reader walks away without ever discovering where the friction was between mother and children (at the end, they all seemed to have resolved their differences but how and what was the original cause?)

The book is an easy read and fairly interesting if you can look past some of the glossing over of facts in favor of dates.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars New Patricia Neal Biography, January 18, 2007

By 

C. M. Smith - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life (Hardcover)

An Unquiet Life is well written and provides extensive information about the Hollywood and Broadway scenes in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. The photographs, from Miss Neal's personal collection as well as those from other sources, are superb.
This new biography serves as a companion piece to Miss Neal's wonderful autobiography, As I Am, and they should be read together.