Patricia Neal, Actress, Fighter to the end

The Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal died on Sunday 8 August at 84, having survived against all odds a series of strokes and personal tragedies.

Patricia Neal defeated death in 1965 at 39, when as she bathed her eldest daughter she suffered a series of multiple strokes. She was expecting her fifth child by Roald Dahl. She fell into a coma, and Variety, in error, published news of her death.

The great indomitable actress who had won an Oscar two years previously for her role opposite Paul Newman in Hud went on to perform again in The Subject Was Roses (1968) opposite Martin Sheen. Her recovery was complete and her unborn child, a healthy daughter Lucy, also survived.

It was Roald Dahl who fed her with encouragement and determination. He surrounded her with physical therapists and drove her to regain her mental powers. By 1967 he had nursed her back to health. At the time Patricia wrote: "I knew at that moment that Roald the slave driver, Roald the bastard, with his relentless scourge, Roald the Rotten, as I had called him more than once, had thrown me back into the deep water where I belonged."

Roald Dahl then left her for an old friend. Patricia wrote: "He did so much for me after my strokes. It was a terrible blow when I found out.”

She was born Patsy Lou Neal at Packard, Kentucky on 20 January 1926. At school, she won a state award for dramatic reading and then studied drama at Northwestern University, Illinois. She left in 1943 to take a role in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten and then became known by the more stately Patricia.

Following two Broadway roles and her photo on the cover of Life Magazine, she began a Hollywood film career- and a love affair with Gary Cooper. When this ended she met writer Roald Dahl at a New York party. Initially she "loathed" him for his rudeness. They married in 1953, a turbulent union lasting 30 years.

In December 1960 their son Theo was crushed in his pram by a taxi cab which left him brain damaged. Then they moved to Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire; two years later their seven-year-old daughter Olivia contracted measles and died the same day.

Patricia always bounced back from her tragedies and illnesses. In her latter years she became involved in charity work for stroke victims but continued to take acting roles. She headed a famous brood of children and grandchildren including Sophie Dahl the model and actress.

Patricia is survived by her four children Tessa, Theo, Ophelia and Lucy.

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