Patricia Neal, 84; won Oscar for 'Hud' role

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Patricia Neal, 84, the willowy, husky-voiced actress who won an Academy Award for 1963's Hud and then survived several strokes to continue acting, died Sunday.

Ms. Neal had lung cancer and died at her home in Edgartown, Mass., on Martha's Vineyard, said a longtime friend, Bud Albers of Knoxville.

Ms. Neal already was an award-winning Broadway actress when she won her Oscar for her role as a housekeeper to a Texas father played by Melvyn Douglas battling his selfish, amoral son played by Paul Newman.

Less than two years after winning the Academy Award, Ms. Neal suffered a series of strokes in 1965. Her struggle to walk and talk again is regarded as epic in the annals of stroke rehabilitation. She returned to the screen to earn nominations for another Oscar and three Emmys.

The Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center, a Knoxville facility that concentrates on helping people recover from strokes and spinal-cord and brain injuries, is named for her. She grew up in Knoxville.

"She never forgot us after she went to Hollywood," said Albers, 85, who graduated with Ms. Neal from Knoxville High School in 1943. 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."

In her 1988 autobiography, As I Am, Ms. Neal wrote: "Frequently my life has been likened to a Greek tragedy, and the actress in me cannot deny that comparison."

She made a grand return to the screen in 1968, winning an Oscar nomination for her performance in The Subject Was Roses.

In 1971, she played Olivia Walton in The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, a made-for-TV film that served as the pilot for the CBS series The Waltons. It brought her the first of her three Emmy nominations.

In 1953, she married Roald Dahl, the British writer famed for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and other tales for children. They had five children. They divorced in 1983, and he died in 1990.

She and Dahl parted after she learned he was having an affair with her best friend.

The strokes at first paralyzed her and impaired her speech. After recovering, she limped and had bad vision in one eye.

Ms. Neal was born in a mining camp in Packard, Ky., the daughter of a transportation manager for the South Coal & Coke Co. After leaving Knoxville, she attended Northwestern University and then struck out for Broadway.

After doing well there, she made her screen debut in 1949's John Loves Mary, which also starred Jack Carson and Ronald Reagan.