“Dealing with Olivia’s Death” – Roald Dahl Fans > “Dealing with Olivia’s Death” “Dealing with Olivia’s Death” This story is from the March 31, 1997 issue of People Magazine. It appeared as part of a larger piece on celebrities who’ve survived the death of a child. Roald Dahl’s first wife Patricia Neal contributed the following… Updated: If you’d like to read more about Olivia, please see “MEASLES: A Dangerous Illness” . In it, Roald Dahl urges parents to have their children vaccinated against measles to avoid tragedies like Olivia’s death. Patricia Neal In 1961, Neal, the Oscar-winning actress (for 1963’s Hud), her husband, writer Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and their three children moved to the tranquil town of Great Missenden, England, after their son Theo was almost killed by a Manhattan taxi cab. A year later, 7-year-old Olivia, the eldest, contracted measles. Inoculation was then rare in England, and Olivia had never received measles vaccine. Less than a week after coming down with the virus, she developed measles encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain.

On Nov. 17, 1962, she fell into a coma and died. The phone rang. It was the doctor. He said, “Mrs. Dahl, Olivia’s dead. Did you hear me? I said Olivia is dead.” I said, yes, thank you. I couldn’t believe how cold he was. Roald came back from the hospital and he cried. Oh, he cried. He had seen her dead. I unfortunately never did. My sisters-in-law talked me out of it. I wish they hadn’t. I stayed up that first night just looking out the window. Your love is dead, and the sun still comes up. It’s just so sad. I was the strong one at that point. I don’t want to brag about myself, but I’ve never seen anything like it. Roald really almost went crazy. I held everything together. I cooked all day and went on. Of course 34 years ago anything like a survivors’ support group was virtually unheard of. You had to pull yourself together. I loved Olivia, loved her, but my God, I had two more children. I had to go on. Over the years, I found that talking about Olivia helped immeasurably.

Roald – who died in 1990 – couldn’t say a word. It was locked inside him. Part of my healing came by having another child. No one could replace Olivia, but a new child would begin to heal the emptiness. In a letter to my doctor in California soon after Olivia’s death, I wrote, “I absolutely believe in a soul. And I long to let her go, to free her and hope she will be born again to me.” Two years later, Ophelia was born and a year after that, Lucy. Over the years, I did other things to help keep Olivia’s memory alive, donating a silver cup to her school each year to be awarded to the best high jumper, as she was in 1962. And when I played Olivia Walton in the TV film that preceded The Waltons television series, I insisted that my character’s name not be changed to “Mary” as the producers wanted. I keep a few momentos of Olivia around the house. One is a letter that she wrote when she was about 6 to a family friend. It says, “Dear Sheila, Thank you for the bubbly gum. I hope you are well.

The bubbly was the most exciting present I ever had and I can blow bubbles . . . Love, Olivia. XXXXX.” That’s my Olivia. Isn’t she a honey of a girl? Olivia Dahl Her mother found refuge in religion after Roald's affairs. Is that why Tessa Dahl is now becoming a nun? | Daily Mail Online Her mother found refuge in religion after Roald's affairs. Is that why Tessa Dahl is now becoming a nun? comments The Abbey of Regina Laudis, home to an enclosed Benedictine order of nuns set in 400 glorious acres of Bethlehem, Connecticut, is probably the last place you would expect to find Tessa Dahl. She was, after all, famous for years as one of the most captivating women in London - chalking up affairs with actors David Hemmings and Peter Sellers, and the ­socialite Dai Llewellyn. The daughter of author Roald Dahl and Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal, she seemed irresistible, wild and unstoppable; famous for her beauty, her sardonic wit and her filthy laugh - and later for her best-­selling books. Rift: Sophie Dahl at home with her mother Tessa some years ago.

Now Tessa says Sophie refuses to talk to her, but she won't say why But now, as her supermodel daughter Sophie awaits the birth of her first child with her husband Jamie Cullum, Tessa has ­chosen for herself the seclusion that comes with life in an abbey. She is in the process of converting to Catholicism and is considering whether to become a nun. ‘I certainly don’t rule it out,’ she told me this week. ‘Not at all.’ Thus she lives on a pine-covered hill beside a bell tower surrounded by fields and ­grazing sheep. Seven times a day, she joins in with the Gregorian chant. She is learning to weave wool and to make butter. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share Without the permission of the Abbess, she can do nothing. And yet, Tessa tells me she is finding the peace and the meaning which have eluded her during her tumultuous life. As someone who has battled manic depression, drink and drug addictions, been ­married twice and has lived on an ashram, she points out the philosopher Jung’s ­comment that addictions are the equivalent of a ­spiritual thirst for God. This certainly rings true for her.

Her chief interest now, she says, is taking instruction in the Catholic faith. And she is hoping she may, in time, heal a rift which has developed lately with Sophie, who is refusing to speak to her. ‘She is very angry with me, and rightly so,’ Tessa says, though for now she is reluctant to explain the ­reasons. ‘I am hoping that eventually I will find redemption with my family.’ It is her relationship with God which preoccupies her, and she says she just ‘loves, loves, loves’ her new life at the abbey. Close bond: Author Roald Dahl with his daughter Tessa, who like her father became a well known childrens' writer ‘My romantic journey now is with God,’ she says. ‘I am not remotely interested in sex, and I haven’t been for a long time. The celibacy part will not ­trouble me.’ It’s fascinating that Tessa was drawn to the abbey because of her mother’s experience there. In 1980, Patricia was devastated after Roald Dahl began an affair and announced he wanted to leave her.

What ­happened next, according to Tessa, is that, by chance, her mother met Maria Cooper, the daughter of her former lover Gary Cooper. Maria was deeply religious and told her to go to the Abbey of Regina Laudis - telling her it was the one place on earth where she could be helped. Maria had got to know of the abbey through her great friend Dolores Hart, a vivacious ­Hollywood actress who, after a successful career which included two starring roles opposite Elvis Presley, had found her vocation and become a nun there. Mother Dolores and Patricia subsequently became great friends. In fact, Tessa believes the nuns saved her ‘inconsolable’ mother’s life. Patricia even spent a period as a postulant, preparing to take the veil. Happy families: Roald Dahl with actress Patricia Neal and their four children in happier times Patricia requested that she be buried at the abbey - choosing her own grave site. And that is how Tessa came to be there. As she explains: ‘I wanted to help to prepare her for burial after her funeral at Martha’s Vineyard. She had left the dress she wanted to be buried in.

The nuns had made a beautiful coffin for her, painted with willow and verses from Twelfth Night. The nuns were so ­wonderful and invited me in. ‘Mother Dolores said: “I am going to miss your mother so much. Would you like to come to the abbey and take her room?” ‘It was just the most magical moment. My mother had been my champion, the only one who believed in me. She would stick up for me no matter what. For the past ten years, I’d been so close to her. My life revolved around her, but she was gone, and I was lost.’ 'You only got attention in our family if you were brain-damaged, dead or terribly ill. There was no reward for being normal' Tessa agreed to go to the abbey - initially for about three weeks. But she has stayed longer and is now living in the tiny room her mother used to have during her time of crisis many years ago. By an odd chance, Tessa is 53 - the same age as her mother when she was drawn to the abbey. Both, too, were going through tremendous grief.

Each month Tessa spends two weeks at the abbey and two weeks at her home near Boston. She also looks after her animals (cats, dogs and a pig) even though she longs to be with the nuns full-time. Tessa is reluctant to go into detail about the rift with Sophie, as well as a broader schism with other members of the family, but says: ‘Since Mummy died, the emotional pain has been almost too ­enormous to describe. There have been many aggravating factors. As my ­sister Ophelia said in her eulogy: “We thought when we held our mother’s hand that we were holding her steady. It is only since she died that we realise that it was the other way round.” ’ Tessa goes on to say that she ‘let down’ Sophie. ‘Since then, my life has been almost unbearable. My children have always been my absolute life. I sometimes have made heinous mistakes. ‘If Mummy had still been alive it would have been sorted out. However, our family is now in horrible factions. ­People claim to want to help. But each person has a history and deep-seated resentment.

Lovers: Tessa had an affair with Peter Sellers (left), as well as actor David Hemmings (right), who left his wife for her - though he returned just weeks later ‘I feel totally alone. There is no trust between them and me. This is totally unfair - yet people believe what they want to believe, and sadly I am ­disadvantaged because I’m an “addict and alcoholic”.’ The religious sanctuary offers a haven in this context. ‘I can pray for redemption and ­forgiveness - and not just for myself. In the Old Testament it suits people to avoid their feelings by having a scapegoat. If I must be the scapegoat, then as much as my pain is at times almost unbearable, then so be it. ‘I have God and I have the absolute truth. I have never claimed to be perfect, just very human and loving.’ Clearly, Tessa is in awe of Mother Dolores and her nuns. ‘Being a member of their community, I feel as if I have found another family,’ she says. Happy couple: Sophie Dahl and jazz musician Jamie Cullum announced they are to be parents. Will Tessa be allowed to visit the baby?

Meanwhile, Tessa has begun writing again and has ­completed her first children’s book in more than 20 years. It’s called The Grave Yard ­Circus and is a captivating, wonderfully imaginative work, and one loaded with her own grief over her mother. She wrote it by hand and presented Mother Dolores with a copy for her birthday three weeks ago. She says: ‘I think it’s good for children, who are often fascinated by death. My father taught me that the more gruesome and grisly the better.’ She hopes to take the role of ‘monastic scholar’ at the abbey and is planning a new novel - her first since Working For Love, which she wrote in 1988, two years before her father Roald died. She had written the book to try to please him. But cynically she says: ‘You only got attention in our family if you were brain-damaged, dead or terribly ill. There was no reward for being normal.’ It was at this point that she began to ‘self-medicate’ with drugs and booze. Not surprisingly, she was soon insolvent and divorced. In 1997, she attempted ­suicide.

Armed with a half-bottle of vodka, her last gram of cocaine and ­bottle of ­barbiturates, she walked into a field, planning to end it all. Instead, she fell into a coma. It was 18 hours before she was found. She was paralysed for two years and faced months of therapy. A nanny looked after her children Sophie, ­Clover, Luke and Ned — their mother, for a time, was too fragile even to live with them. ‘Until I came to the abbey, I had been living in a state of constantly waiting for the next bomb to drop,’ she says. Now Tessa Dahl is finding some semblance of peace. She says that for the first five days after Patricia died this summer, she kept smelling bursts of her mother’s perfume. She doesn’t doubt that her mother wanted her to follow her to this sanctuary, and was guiding her towards a new ‘family’ which could care for her. Tessa says: ‘The nuns loved my mother so much.’ What is unspoken is her profound hope that they will now care for her in the same way.

Roald and the Bacon Painting | Observer Roald Dahl and the Bacon Painting Writer and painter shared a dark sensibility By Tom Teodorczuk • 06/30/14 9:00am Study for Head of Lucian Freud (1967) by Francis Bacon Photo: Courtesy of CHRISTIE'S IMAGES LTD. 2014 On the occasion of author Roald Dahl’s 72nd birthday in 1988, a celebratory supper was thrown for him at London’s Garrick Club. Dahl’s literary publisher, Tom Maschler, invited Dahl to select the guests. Among those he chose was the Irish figurative painter Francis Bacon. “It was a great compliment that Bacon showed up on time and was sober,” said Luke Kelly, Dahl’s grandson, who now manages his estate. The actress Joanna Lumley, another attendee, told Dahl’s biographer Donald Sturrock that Bacon’s “little round black eyes sparkled” when his host spoke to him. The feeling was mutual. Dahl revered Bacon as a person and as an artist.

Both died less than half a decade after the Garrick Club supper, but the fact that the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda, something of a serial Romeo in his private life, and the gay painter of the screaming popes were creative kindred spirits, as well as friends, is now being reflected in the sale of Dahl’s Study for Head of Lucian Freud. The painting, which Dahl bought for $4,850 in 1967 with the US proceeds from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, will go under the hammer at Christie’s in London on July 1. It was one of four Bacon canvases Dahl purchased during the 1960s. Study for Head of Lucian Freud is expected to fetch between $13 and $20 million. Many think this a conservative estimate since Bacon’s 6-foot painting Three Studies of Lucian Freud set the world-record price for a picture at auction, commanding $142.4 million at Christie’s New York last November. Dahl’s picture is a smaller, more modest depiction of fellow artist Freud than that, but it is quintessential Francis Bacon, an electrifyingly bold maelstrom that twists and blurs Freud’s face to arresting effect.

“It’s an amazing painting especially in terms of its feeling of emotion and flux,” Mr. Kelly told the Observer recently over lunch at the Mercer Kitchen. Mr. Kelly, 27, lives in Manhattan and London, having recently relocated from Harrisville, New Hampshire, where he ran an antiques showroom. Tall and rangy like his grandfather, though one suspects much more outgoing, Mr. Kelly is passionate about keeping Dahl’s flame alive, overseeing screen and stage adaptations, as well as the philanthropic side. (Proceeds from the Christie’s sale go to Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity and The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Buckinghamshire.) Mr. Kelly is reminiscent of the type of young man found in a Jon Robin Baitz play or indie film seeking to ensure future generations enjoy his grandfather’s creative legacy. In fiction, such characters often get undone by philistine commerce-driven relatives, but in this case, the darkness seems limited to being within Dahl’s work. “Roald had the kind of life that doesn’t happen nowadays,” Mr.

Kelly reflected, citing him being a Second World War fighter pilot and spy, husband of Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal, adult short story writer and a children’s novelist, which brought him most acclaim. “There were 50 lives in one life. I don’t want to say Zelig because that sounds fortuitous but he popped up everywhere. He was friends with Roosevelt, Disney, Noel Coward, Hemingway and Bacon.” Dahl was also a devoted art collector, with tastes ranging from Cézanne to Soutine. He kept his art on display in Gipsy House, the Georgian cottage in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, where he lived and worked. Other artwork would come and go, but Study for Head of Lucian Freud always remained in the living room. “A creepy family member,” Mr. Kelly joked. “For me it was a real mark of continuity. Things would change but that painting was always there. It was something you had to notice, slightly unnerving and unsettling in a good way. It felt like a huge echo of Roald in terms of his interests.” And what dark interests they were.

It’s not only disturbing short story collections such as Switch Bitch (1974); ask a parent who reads James and the Giant Peach to their kids only to awkwardly twitch at the beginning when James’ parents are killed by an escaped rhinoceros. Unease hovers over Matilda, now a hit Broadway musical. “Matilda is basically a story about child abuse,” Mr. Kelly observed. “There’s a tender side when she finds Miss Honey, but her family life is appalling.” These twisted sensibilities bonded Dahl and Bacon. “The parallel between Bacon’s work and Dahl’s work is that dark underside, the emotional intensity,” said Mr. Kelly. “They both liked the cracks and the crevices and treasured the subversive. You see it in their work and in their relationship.” Dahl told his stepdaughter Neisha Crosland he liked Bacon’s art for its “blend of emotion and profound economy.” The pair first met in 1958 at a London art exhibition for Bacon, Victor Passmore and Matthew Smith. They shared similar artistic tastes, in particular admiring Smith, a painter who specialized in nudes and still lifes, and Van Gogh. “They were hard-living people who loved the dark things,” Mr.

Kelly noted. “Bacon would rip out eyes from paintings and photographs, and Roald cut out the eyes from serial killers from the newspaper because he thought you could look at eyes and create a story around that.” Dahl did not go for Bacon’s sybaritic London lifestyle, which revolved around drinking at West End haunt The Colony Room (where Lucian Freud was also a regular). “Bacon would come to Gipsy House and have dinner and I imagine they went to drinking clubs,” says Mr. Kelly. “They bonded over a shared love of drinking, gambling and art. Both spoke their mind, and they didn’t suffer fools gladly.” In the Christie’s catalogue for the sale, Dahl’s daughter Lucy Dahl cites their divergent nocturnal attitudes when she recalls being driven by her father in London in the 1980s. He spotted Bacon and offered him a lift. Dahl told Bacon, “I’m off to smuggle my daughter Lucy into the casino for a quick tickle on the tables.” When Bacon exited the car, Dahl declared to his daughter, “He’s off to the red-light district,” before adding, “He’s an absolute genius.” Dahl was clearly protective of Bacon. Mr.

Sturrock recorded in his biography, Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl: “I saw him explode only once. He was on the telephone to the curator of a Francis Bacon exhibition in New York who wanted to borrow one of his paintings and had called while he had guests or dinner.” Mr. Kelly believes Bacon appealed to Dahl’s artistic eclecticism: “Roald collected challenging art, not the sort that you would find in someone’s house at that time. This is not a painting by Freud of the Queen owned by Roald! It’s darkness and psychology. He felt Bacon was doing something fresh at a time when he was doing something fresh in children’s writing.” There is another poignant reason why Dahl was drawn to Study for Head of Lucian Freud. The 1960s was a period of creative rebirth for Dahl with James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Kiss Kiss—containing perhaps his best adult writing—and the script for the James Bond film You Only Live Twice.

But it was also a decade marred by personal tragedy: in 1960 Dahl and Neal’s son Theo suffered brain damage after being hit by a taxi while in his stroller crossing 85th Street and Madison Avenue. Two years later, their daughter Olivia died at age seven from inflammation of the brain caused by measles. In 1965, Patricia Neal, pregnant with their fourth daughter Lucy, suffered three consecutive strokes and remained in a coma for three weeks. Dahl himself painstakingly oversaw her rehabilitation, and it’s plausible that Bacon’s portrait of Freud helped him to come to terms with her condition. Luke Kelly and his grandfather Roald Dahl. “This painting shows a sweep through the head,” Mr. Kelly noted, “and it’s almost impossible for me to look at it and not think, ‘Your wife was no longer able to access parts of her mind or to speak, and so you buy a work where you’ve got a connection to Sigmund Freud with the psyche and a clear kind of tumult where the mind has been struck across in some way.’” The convergence of Dahl, Bacon and Lucian Freud at the Christie’s sale brings together three British outsiders.

(Bacon was Irish and gay, Dahl Welsh-born to Norwegian parents and Freud born in Berlin to Austrian and German parents.) All three were included in a 2012 leaked list of names that turned down a British honor from the Queen. They were prominent members of the U.K. cultural establishment, but it was a club they never felt they properly belonged to. “None of them were really English,” Mr. Kelly pointed out. “Roald wasn’t really accepted as a children’s author—he only won one literary prize and spent his whole life thinking he was an outsider.” Dahl is certainly judged differently now. Upcoming adaptations of his stories include Esio Trot, adapted by Richard Curtis, starring Dustin Hoffman and Dame Judi Dench, and Steven Spielberg’s live-action version of The BFG, due in 2016. Before that, it’s the Bacon sale. “It’s inevitably sad when something is sold that represents someone,” Mr.

Kelly said, “and in many ways the picture represents my grandfather’s interests and the key to his tastes.” Paraphrasing Dylan Thomas, he doesn’t have a strong preference where Study for Head of Lucian Freud ends up next: “No matter who it goes to, it’s the kind of work that is not going to go quietly into the good night.” Sophie Dahl - Biography - IMDb Sophie Dahl Biography Showing all 32 items Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (23) | Personal Quotes (3) Overview (3) 5' 11" (1.8 m) Mini Bio (1) Sophie Dahl was born on September 15, 1977 in London, England as Sophia Holloway. She is an actress and writer, known for The Delicious Miss Dahl (2010), The King of Bollywood (2004) and People I Know (2002). She has been married to Jamie Cullum since January 9, 2010. They have two children.

Spouse (1) ( 9 January 2010 - present) (2 children) Trade Mark (1) Trivia (23) Maternal granddaughter of children's author Roald Dahl and Acadamy Award winning actress Patricia Neal . Was first discovered by Isabella Blow , a Vogue stylist/fashion expert who also lived in Sophie's building. Sophie had just had an intense argument with her mother, and was sitting on the front steps of their apartment weeping. The two women (who up until that point were strangers) struck up a long conversation, and Isabella was awestruck by Sophie's beauty. Soon after, she referred Sophie to Sarah Doukas of the Storm modeling agency in London. In addition to modeling and acting, she also writes short stories, several of which have been published in various magazines. Was in a relationship with actor/director Griffin Dunne (2000-2001). Paternal granddaughter of actor Stanley Holloway and former chorus girl Violet Lane (who she called 'Gee Gee'). Her mother is an author Tessa Dahl and her father is the actor Julian Holloway . Has published a book 'The Man with the Dancing Eyes' (2003).

Starlet model/writer Lyndsy Spence (aka Lyndsylee Spence) has been compared to a teenage version of Sophie Dahl. Is the new model for Pringle to promote their Argyle fashion Her naked advertisement for Yves Saint-Laurent Opium perfume was banned by the British Advertising Standards Agency. Was immortalised in Roald Dahl 's story "The BFG" as Sophie the little girl the giant befriended. Was ranked #10 in Channel 5's "World's greatest supermodel". Her maternal grandmother Patricia Neal and paternal grandfather Stanley Holloway both co-starred alongside Audrey Hepburn in one of her best known films: the former in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and the latter in My Fair Lady (1964). Older half-sister of Luke Kelly . Engaged to jazz pianist virtuoso Jamie Cullum . [2009] Gave birth to her 1st child at age 33, a daughter Lyra Cullum on March 2, 2011. Child's father is her husband, Jamie Cullum .

Gave birth to her 2nd child at age 35, a 2nd daughter Margot Cullum on March 4, 2013. Child's father is her husband, Jamie Cullum . Release of her book, "The Man with the Dancing Eyes". [2003] Release of her book, "Playing with the Grown-Ups: A Novel". [2008] Living in New York City and London. [2003] Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal dies at age 84 washingtonpost.com > Photo Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal dies at age 84 Patricia Neal, the husky-voiced actress who won an Academy Award for 1963's "Hud" and then survived several strokes to continue acting, died Sunday after a battle with lung cancer.

Patricia Neal’s Family and Marriage to Roald Dahl - The Daily Beast Olivia Cole 08.11.10 10:54 PM ET At the start of Boy , Roald Dahl’s first volume of memoirs, he explained the genre: “An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.” Full of boring details was never a description that could have been used to describe the lives of Dahl and his wife, the Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal, who died this week at the age of 84. Nor could it be applied to the sprawling family of writers, activists, and artists that sprang from this unlikely mix of Hollywood stardom and a literary master from Norway via Wales whose charisma, womanizing , and work for MI5 invites speculation that he might have partly inspired 007, the creation of his friend Ian Fleming. Click the Image to View Our Gallery of Patricia Neal Photos These two entertainment titans produced a brood of characters worthy of their dad’s imagination.

There are Theo Dahl, 50; Lucy, 45, a screenwriter who penned Wild Child, about a Malibu princess shipped off to the kind of English boarding school her dad endured; Tessa, 53, the writer, and mother of model Sophie Dahl; and Ophelia, 46. It was Ophelia who, tasked with the job of writing her father’s biography, entrusted it to family friend Donald Sturrock , who describes the clan as made of “lots of artistic talents in their own right.” When Neal and Dahl met at a dinner party thrown by Children’s Hour playwright Lillian Hellman, Neal, a household name for roles in films like The Fountainhead, was in the wake of a three-year affair with Gary Cooper, which ended with Neal aborting their child on his advice. “Frequently my life has been likened to a Greek tragedy and the actress in me cannot deny the comparison,” she wrote in her 1988 autobiography .

Both, says Sturrock, were “at the right point in their lives to make a match, although both had reservations about whether they were making the right one.” When they married in 1953, Neal and Dahl were keen to have children, with their first of five born in 1955. It was family, and later tragedy, that “bound them together.” In a freak accident, their baby son, Theo, was hit in his stroller by a New York taxi, and their eldest daughter, Olivia, died of complications from measles at the age of 7. For all the doubts, “after that, there was a sense that they were an inseparable team,” says Sturrock. When the family moved back to London in 1961, Dahl collaborated with surgeons to invent a kind of valve that it was thought could help Theo. It was the children, too, who were responsible for Dahl concentrating his energies on writing for children. The BFG ’s Big Friendly Giant was, for instance, him: the six foot six dad telling his children a bedtime story.

From witches that terrorize children to greedy little boys that vanish into giant vats of chocolate and poachers that get their bottoms peppered with bullets, Roald Dahl’s fictive universe needs no introduction to the millions of children (and children now grown up) who still read his work. For all the elements of Greek tragedy, which took its darkest turn when she suffered a debilitating stroke in her 30s, her friends recall Neal, too, as enormously good fun. Like Dahl, says Sturrock, Neal was “very blunt, very open, very honest and very ready to talk about things, without any bullshit.” Jeremy Treglown, professor of comparative literature at Warwick University, and former editor of the TLS , got to know her in the '90s, when he worked on an unauthorized biography of Dahl. “She was full of life,” he says, “a great gossip with a tough Southern sense of humor,” who could raise eyebrows with her disinclination to follow the rules. “Part of the fun was that since the brain hemorrhage she couldn't remember names, so would tell me impossibly tantalizing gossip along the lines of 'She had a disgraceful affair with ...

the sweet guy who got an Oscar in what was it called?...” The stroke, says Sturrock, was “the straw that broke the camel's back in the marriage." Told she would never walk or talk again, Dahl refused to accept the doctor’s prognosis and his desperately strident recovery program for her is now akin to modern treatment of strokes. At the time, it was harshly unorthodox, for instance, insisting that she use the right word if she mixed them up. “I think that if there’s a defining family trait, it has something to do with not being frightened to say the thought that’s in your head,” says Donald Sturrock. Neal’s death, at a miraculous 84, considering her near-miss some 50 years before, coincided with the long-awaited publication of the first authorized biography of Dahl, Storyteller by Sturrock, who as a BBC producer in his 20s befriended Dahl when he was sent to make a documentary about him.

Despite the 40-year age gap, the two were close for four years until Dahl’s death, and Sturrock was even permitted to film inside Dahl’s writing hut at the bottom of his garden in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire. In Boy, Dahl described how his eccentric father would make his mother go on walks in sublime landscapes in the final months of pregnancy, convinced that this would create an addiction to beauty in the unborn child. His own children had the benefit of a father Ophelia termed “magical,” and beyond this, for all he and Neal’s difficulties and ill-health, it would be pop psychology to try to guess at the effects of the pits and troughs of their marriage on their children. Ophelia commented once, “Our family life has been rather like a fairy story. Dark beginnings and a final reconciliation.” Despite enormous pain at the time, even Neal and Dahl’s second wife, Felicity "Liccy" Crosland, her friend for whom he left her, were eventually reconciled. Tessa, a writer and contributing editor to Tatler, suffered bouts of depression and alcoholism.

Her daughter Sophie Dahl joked of her hippie-ish childhood, moving 17 times by the time she was 19: “All I wanted was a stable life, but whenever I told Mum that she used to say, ‘All right then, we’ll get you a stable.’” It’s the now the stuff of fashion legend that the late Isabella Blow “discovered” the then-teenage Sophie Dahl on the King’s Road in London crying in a doorway after a row with her mother. With her curves intact, she was signed to Storm and was for a moment a poster girl for models the opposite of the prevailing heroin chic. Minus the curves, she had a successful modeling career in New York and there was a well-documented spell as Mick Jagger’s girlfriend. Now married to the jazz singer Jamie Cullum , she also campaigns for the Soil Association and a had recent cooking series that drew favorable comparisons with national treasure Nigella Lawson. Known for her blunt style in social settings, Dahl has cut a swath through London’s literary and fashion worlds. Twenty years after her death, The BFG was dedicated to Olivia, to whom Dahl had first told his children’s stories.

It was Sophie, too, who inspired the small bespectacled blond heroine. Like her mother, Tessa, she now writes, including a novel, The Man With the Dancing Eyes. The couple’s son Theo, who recovered from that terrible accident, and daughter Lucy, whom Neal was pregnant with when she had her stroke, work as screenwriters. For her part, Ophelia handed over the task of biographer to Sturrock, and is a prominent social justice and health-care advocate. As the director of Partners in Health , she works with Dr. Paul Farmer in his efforts to improve health care and provide medical services to people in Haiti, Rwanda, and all over the world. She was prominently featured in Tracy Kidder’s account, Mountains Beyond Mountains , of their remarkable work. “In Pat and in what I learned about Roald Dahl," says Treglown, "a certainty that life is what you make it and that the only way to deal with problems is to deal with them. “I don’t know if I can communicate but I think that if there’s a defining family trait, it has something to do with not being frightened to say the thought that’s in your head. There’s little impulse to edit,” says Sturrock.

A gift, you could say, to a biographer, his readers, and not least to fans of Patricia Neal and Dahls everywhere. Correction: This story has been revised to correct which daughter Neal was pregnant with when she had a stroke; who her youngest child is; and the years of when she met Dahl, when they married, and when their first child was born. Patricia Neal - Biography - IMDb Patricia Neal Biography Showing all 69 items Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (52) | Personal Quotes (10) Overview (4) 5' 8½" (1.74 m) Mini Bio (1) Patricia Neal, the Oscar- and Tony Award-winning actress, was born Patricia Louise Neal in Packard, Kentucky. Her father managed a coal mine and her mother was the daughter of the town doctor. She grew up in Knoxville, where she attended high school. She was first bit by the acting bug at the age of 10, after attending an evening of monologues at a Methodist church.

She subsequently wrote a letter to Santa Claus, telling him, "What I want for Christmas is to study dramatics". She won the Tennessee State Award for dramatic reading while she was in high school. She apprenticed at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia when she was 16-years-old, between her junior and senior years in high school. After studying drama for two years at Northwestern University, she headed to New York City and landed the job as an understudy in The Voice of the Turtle (1947). It was the producer of the play that had her change her name from Patsy to Patricia. After replacing Vivian Vance in the touring company of "Turtle", she won a role in a play that closed in Boston and then appeared in summer stock. She won the role of the teenage "Regina" in Lillian Hellman 's play, Another Part of the Forest (1948), for which she won a Tony Award in 1947. Subsequently, she signed a seven-year contract with Warner Bros.

In the first part of her film career, her most impressive roles were in The Fountainhead (1949), opposite Gary Cooper , with whom she had three-year-long love affair, and in director Robert Wise 's sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), which she made at 20th Century-Fox. Warners hadn't been thrilled with her and let her go before her contract was up, so she signed with Fox. Her film career stagnating, she returned to Broadway and achieved the success that eluded her in films, appearing in the revival of Hellman's play, The Children's Hour (1961), in 1952. She met and married the writer, Roald Dahl , in 1953, and they would have five children in 30 years of marriage. In 1957, she had one of her finest roles in Elia Kazan 's parable about the threat of mass-media demagoguery and home-grown fascism in A Face in the Crowd (1957).

Before she had appeared in the movie, Neal had taken over the role of "Maggie" in Tennessee Williams ' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), the Broadway smash that had been directed by Kazan. Returning to the stage, she appeared in the London production of Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) and co-starred with Anne Bancroft in the Broadway production of The Miracle Worker (1962). After appearing in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), she had what was arguably her finest role, as Alma the housekeeper, in Hud (1963) opposite Paul Newman . The film was a hit and Neal won the Best Actress Oscar. In 1965, she suffered a series of strokes that nearly killed her. She was filming John Ford 's film, 7 Women (1966), at the time, and had to be replaced by Anne Bancroft (who would later take a role she turned down, "Mrs. Robinson" in The Graduate (1967)). Neal was pregnant at the time. She underwent a seven-hour operation on her brain and survived, later delivering her fifth child. She underwent rehabilitation supervised by her husband.

She had turned down The Graduate (1967) as she had not recovered fully from her stroke. When she returned to the screen, in 1968 in The Subject Was Roses (1968), she suffered from memory problems. According to her director, Ulu Grosbard , "The memory element was the uncertain one. But when we started to shoot, she hit her top level. She really rises to the challenge. She has great range, even more now than before". She received an Oscar nomination for her work. Subsequently, new acting roles equal to her talent were sparse. She did receive three Emmy nominations, the first for originating the role of "Olivia Walton" in the 1971 TV movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971), that gave birth to the TV show The Waltons (1971). Patricia Neal died on August 9, 2010 in Edgarton, Massachusetts from lung cancer. She was 84 years old. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood Spouse (1) Grandmother of model/actress Sophie Dahl , Chloe Dahl and Luke Kelly .

Received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award (1986). She was offered the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967), but she was nervous about doing such a demanding role so soon after her stroke. Roald was credited with helping her rehabilitate after her strokes. He designed her recovery routines. Grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her own stroke recovery experiences led to her becoming a champion in the rehabilitation field. Her commitment to the rehabilitation center at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center (in her hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee) led the Center to dedicate this in 1978 as the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center. Attended and graduated from Knoxville High School in Knoxville, Tennessee. "Variety", the entertainment newspaper, mistakenly reported in their February 22, 1965 headline that Patricia Neal had died from her multiple strokes five days earlier. In truth, she remained in a coma for 21 days. Pregnant at the time, her daughter, Lucy Dahl , was born healthy. After moving to New York, she earned her first job as a Broadway understudy after only two-and-a-half months of pounding the pavement in the production of "The Voice of the Turtle".

Has a summer home in Martha's Vineyard. Mother of Ophelia Dahl , Lucy Dahl , Theo Dahl and Tessa Dahl . Daughter, Olivia Twenty Dahl (born April 20, 1955 - died November 17, 1962), died suddenly of complications from measles at the age of seven. Received her Bachelor of Science degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois (1947). Member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. In 1947, the first time that Broadway's Tony Awards were presented, she won the Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) Award for "Another Part of the Forest". Her classmates at Northwestern University included Cloris Leachman , Paul Lynde , Charlotte Rae , Charlton Heston , Martha Hyer and Agnes Nixon . Began a relationship with Gary Cooper on the set of The Fountainhead (1949). He was forty-seven, she was twenty-two. In 1951, Cooper separated from his wife with the intention of marrying Neal; however, he never filed for divorce, and in 1954, they reconciled.

Meanwhile, the affair with Neal had fizzled out, and she married Roald Dahl . On March 4, 2007, she received one of the two Lifetime Achievement Awards presented annually by the SunDeis Film Festival at Brandeis University, following a screening of her classic film A Face in the Crowd (1957) ( Roy Scheider was the other honoree). In Italy, most of her films were dubbed by Clelia Bernacchi . She was occasionally dubbed by Franca Dominici -in The Fountainhead (1949); Giovanna Scotto -in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951); Tina Lattanzi -in Diplomatic Courier (1952); as well as Anna Miserocchi . Has performed at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia. She has a grandchild from daughter, Ophelia Dahl , and Ophelia's partner, Lisa Frantzis.

Grandchildren: Sophie Dahl (born on September 15, 1977), Clover Martha Patricia Kelly (born on September 21, 1984), Luke Kelly (aka "Luke James Roald Kelly") (born on July 17, 1986), Ned Dahl Donovan (born on January 7, 1994) from daughter Tessa Dahl ; Phoebe Patricia Rose Faircloth (born on November 4, 1988), Chloe Dahl (aka Chloe Michaela Dahl) (born on September 12, 1990) from daughter Lucy Dahl ; Alexa Isabella Dahl (born on June 26, 2005) from son Theo Dahl . Returned to work 3 months after giving birth to her son Theo Dahl in order to begin filming Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). Performed with the Tennessee Valley Players before studying drama at Northwestern University. Pat and Roald's ordeal and ultimate victory over her illness made for an excellent movie, The Patricia Neal Story (1981), starring Glenda Jackson and Dirk Bogarde .

Won the Tony, Donaldson, Theatre World and New York Dramatic Critics awards for her 1946 Broadway performance in Lillian Hellman 's "Another Part of the Forest". It was Hellman who later introduced Patricia to future husband Roald Dahl . Made an appearance at the 2008 Nashville Film Festival in which she was given the festival's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. Unhappy with her roles in Hollywood, she was suspended by Warner Bros. for refusing to co-star with Randolph Scott in a western. That and her torrid but futile affair with married actor Gary Cooper , which led to an abortion and nervous collapse, quickened her decision to leave Hollywood and return to New York City where she refocused on theater. Her father, William Burdette Neal, was a transportation manager for a coal company; her mother, Eura Mildred Petrey, was a bookkeeper. Following her two-year illness and rehabilitation, the Oscar-winning Patricia made her first public appearance in March 1967, in which she spoke to 2,000 people in New York City at a benefit for the New York Association for Brain Injured Children.

She also showed up at the 1967 Academy Awards ceremony to present the award for "Best Foreign Film" and received a standing ovation. On February 5, 1965, while on location filming 7 Women (1966), a pregnant Patricia was bathing daughter Tessa Dahl at a rented home when she suffered a massive, paralyzing stroke, followed by two more. Baby Lucy Dahl was later born healthy but in its aftermath, the actress suffered from partial paralysis, partial blindness, she lost her memory and was unable to speak. Husband Roald Dahl had her undergo extensive therapy back in England, including swimming, walking, memory games and crossword puzzles. Her 5-month-old baby son Theo Dahl suffered severe neurological damage on December 5, 1960, when his carriage (which was being pushed by a nurse) was accidentally crushed between a taxi and a bus in New York City. He survived following several operations.

After he played such a strong and devoted role in her physical and mental recovery from her paralytic illness, Patricia divorced her husband, writer Roald Dahl , after discovering his romantic affair with her close friend, Felicity ("Liccy") d'Abreu Crossland (aka Liccy Dahl ). The couple married shortly after Roald and Patricia's divorce became final. Returned to work 6 months after giving birth to her daughter Olivia to begin performing in "A Roomful of Roses" on Broadway. Was in a story segment of The Third Secret (1964) which was removed from the film. Was 5 months pregnant with her son Theo Dahl when she completed her run of the Broadway play "The Miracle Worker". Was 3 months pregnant with her daughter Tessa Dahl when she completed filming A Face in the Crowd (1957). Was supposed to continue playing the female lead role as Olivia Walton in The Waltons (1971) after the pilot episode, but her health problems prevented this. Was unable to attend The 36th Annual Academy Awards (1964), where she won the Best Actress Oscar for Hud (1963), as she was 8 months pregnant with her daughter Ophelia Dahl .

Her upset at being knocked unconscious in order to give birth to her first child, Olivia, led her to vow never to give birth in New York City again. Shared an apartment with Jean Hagen in New York City whilst working on Broadway. Mildred Dunnock served as her matron of honor at her wedding to Roald Dahl on July 2, 1953. Returned to work 2 months after giving birth to her daughter Ophelia Dahl to begin filming In Harm's Way (1965). Has appeared on WABC-TV Consumer Line in New York City to deal with a botched contracting job in her bathroom. [March 2009] Is one of 6 actresses to have been pregnant at the time of winning the Academy Award; the others are Eva Marie Saint , Meryl Streep , Catherine Zeta-Jones , Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman . Neal is the only to have not accepted her award in person as a result of her pregnancy. Neal was 8 months pregnant with her daughter Ophelia Dahl when she won the Best Actress Oscar for Hud (1963).

Obituary: Patricia Neal dies at 84; Oscar-winning actress - latimes YOU ARE HERE: LAT Home → Collections → Succession Obituary: Patricia Neal dies at 84; Oscar-winning actress The actress, who won an Academy Award for her role in the 1963 film 'Hud,' persevered through a life that was marked by a succession of tragedies. August 09, 2010 |By Jack Jones Actress Patricia Neal, who rebuilt a troubled career to win an Academy Award only to face a more desperate battle for survival when three strokes left her paralyzed and unable to speak or remember, has died. She was 84. Neal died Sunday of lung cancer at her home in Edgarton, Mass., her family told the Associated Press. A succession of tragedies marked the life of the actress whose bright promise on Broadway in the mid-1940s took her to Hollywood and into a succession of lackluster films, as well as a desperate love affair with actor Gary Cooper and marriage to British writer Roald Dahl.

Her infant son's brain was damaged when his stroller was struck by a New York City taxicab, a daughter died as a result of measles and then — only a year after she finally won critical acclaim and an Oscar for her portrayal of the weary housekeeper in the 1963 film "Hud" — she suffered three strokes that appeared to end her career. With the determined help of her husband, Neal recovered sufficiently to return to films, but then lost Dahl to another woman whom she had accepted as a friend. "I am bitter, yes," she told an interviewer in 1984, the year after she divorced Dahl. "But I keep remembering that Roald and I had some good times together … and he did so much for me after my strokes .... It was a terrible blow when I found out." After 30 years of living in England with Dahl, she moved to a house on Martha's Vineyard and wished for more opportunities to perform. "My problem is convincing people that I'm well again and able to work," she said.

"Of course, the right side of my body has been a bit of a mess since my strokes, but otherwise I'm fine." She never really got over Cooper, the great love of her life. In her 1988 autobiography, "As I Am," she wrote, "He is one of the most beautiful things that ever happened to me in my life. I love him even now." But Cooper remained a married man until his death, and the affair left Neal crushed. She was born Patsy Louise Neal on Jan. 20, 1926, in a Packard, Ky., mining camp where her father was transportation manager for a coal company. In Knoxville, Tenn., where the family moved while she was in grammar school, she was precocious and showed talent in reciting monologues at church gatherings. Her parents encouraged her, and she received dramatic coaching at 12. She performed with the Tennessee Valley Players and then studied drama at Northwestern University. After two years there, Neal went to New York, arriving in 1945 with $60 and a burning ambition.

She got an understudy's job in "The Voice of the Turtle" on Broadway but basically earned her livelihood as a cashier, clerk and model while trying out for parts. Playwright Eugene O'Neill took an interest in her, and that led to her being hired by the Theatre Guild to appear in the summer tryout of a play in Westport, Conn. There, she was seen by Lillian Hellman, who wanted her for "Another Part of the Forest," and by Richard Rodgers, who wanted to cast her as the female lead in "John Loves Mary." She chose the Hellman play — and that 1947 engagement brought her five major awards, including a Tony and the New York Drama Critics' Award. It also brought her several screen offers. She signed with Warner Bros. and landed in Hollywood in December 1948 to star in the film version of the play she had turned down in New York — "John Loves Mary." Appearing in the movie with her were actors Jack Carson, Wayne Morris and Ronald Reagan. She also made "Hasty Heart" at Warner's with Reagan. Years later, when he was in the White House, she told an interviewer, "He was a pleasant fellow.

We had adjoining suites and dined together each evening, but he never made a pass at me, dash it all." Neal's film career, however, did not deliver on the promise of her early stage success. Hollywood treated her like the typical starlet. She was the 1949 Junior Rose Bowl Queen. She made nine films in three years, the most notable of which probably was "The Fountainhead" (1949), in which she portrayed the spoiled, neurotic Dominique of Ayn Rand's novel. Her co-star was Cooper. She was sneered at by the critics, who also panned "The Bright Leaf" (1950), the second film in which she starred with Cooper. "Three Secrets" (1950), "Operation Pacific" (1951), "Raton Pass" (1951), "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), "Diplomatic Courier" (1952) and "Something for the Birds" (1952) were hardly films to make her a memorable star. "Hollywood misunderstood Pat completely," said writer Barry Farrell in the book he subsequently wrote about her strokes and recovery.

"She was cast in heavy romantic roles, silly little comedies, sophisticated, lacquered-beauty roles — everything that was wrong for her." Her unhappiness was growing, too, because of her futile romance with Cooper. "He was married," she pointed out 30 years later, "and declined to leave his wife. And rightly so." Some published accounts suggested that the affair led her to a nervous breakdown. Oscar Winner Patricia Neal Dies at 84 Search Oscar Winner Patricia Neal Dies at 84 Best known for her work in “Hud,” the award winning actress suffered a debilitating stroke that nearly ended her career Brent Lang & Josh Dickey | August 8, 2010 @ 11:18 PM Patricia Neal, the whiskey voiced Oscar winning actress, died Sunday at her home in Edgartown, Massachusetts. She was 84. The cause was lung cancer, according to her friend, Edward Albers. Best known for her work in “Hud,” as the housekeeper who carries a torch for Paul Newman ’s iconic antihero, only to find their playful banter dissolve into a shocking rape, Neal endured real life tragedies that were as challenging as those she faced on screen or on stage.

In 1965, at the height of her popularity and fresh off her Oscar victory for “Hud,” Neal suffered a debilitating stroke while filming John Ford’s “Seven Women.” She was left partially paralyzed and without the ability to speak. With the often draconian assistance of her husband, the children’s book author Roald Dahl, Neal was eventually able to walk and talk again. So successful was her recovery, that she returned to star in the 1968 film adaptation of Frank Gilroy’s hit play “The Subject Was Roses.” Her performance as a woman in a loveless marriage struggling to reconnect with her son earned her an Oscar nomination. Neal got her start on Broadway at a young age, winning a Tony before age 21 for her debut in Lillian Hellman's "Another Part of the Forest." She also won a Donaldson Award and a New York Drama Critics Award. Her film career started promisingly when Warner Bros.

signed her to a multi-picture deal and soon cast her as Dominique in the film adaptation of Ayn Rand's seminal "The Fountainhead." The young actress was taken with her co-star, Gary Cooper, who played Howard Roark, beginning a passionate love affair with the much older actor But the affair was short-lived and “The Fountainhead” flopped, as did her next film with Cooper, "Bright Leaf." At one point she became pregnant with Cooper's child, but had an abortion — a decision she said she regretted for 30 years. Both her personal and professional lives were soon in shambles, as she stumbled from one bad film to another. The only highlight being a lead role in Robert Wise's cult classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still." She eventually parted ways with Warners, only to stumble into Lillian Hellman, who asked her to star in her play "The Children's Hour." During this time she met future husband Roald Dahl, with whom she would have five children.

Neal experienced an onstage revival in the 1950s, with "Suddenly Las Summer" and "The Miracle Worker," and soon wound up back in Hollywood with "A Face in the Crowd," "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "In Harm's Way," with John Wayne . But tragedy would continue to visit Neal's family. When Neal and Dahl's son,Theo, was brain-damaged in 1960 by an incident with a New York City taxicab, the couple decided to move to the English countryside. Two years later, their 7-year-old daughter Olivia died of measles encephalitis — though she might've survived with New York's medical care. And the strokes struck Neal again at age 39, when she was pregnant with her fifth child. Dahl pushed her on a daily basis to get better, forcing her to relearn much of which she'd already re-learned once before. Neal gave birth to a healthy daughter six months later. She returned to give a speech at a charity for brain-damaged children in 1967, and later said that in that moment she realized that her husband's constant badgering had brought her back from the brink.

However, the couple were divorced in 1983 when Neal found out that her husband was sleeping with one of her best friends. He died in 1990. Though she remained largely absent from the screen following her triumph with "Roses," Neal struck a lovely end note to her career with a finely etched performance as the title character in Robert Altman 's 1999 ensemble comedy "Cookie's Fortune." Neal is survived by her four children, a brother, a sister, 10 grandchildren and step grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Show Comments

Question: Writer Roald Dahl was the husband of which Oscar-winning actress?
Answer: Patricia Neal