Strokes of Fate

Named Best New Actress for her performance in the 1946 Broadway production, Another Part of the Forest, Patricia Neal won an Academy Award for the 1963 movie Hud and was nominated for another Oscar for The Subject Was Roses. That 1968 performance was especially notable because it marked her return after a series of strokes in 1965 left the 39-year-old comatose and partially paralyzed. In addition to resuming her career, Neal became a champion for stroke victims; a rehabilitation center in Knoxville, Tenn., bears her name.

These days, Neal, 80, divides her time between her New York and Martha's Vineyard homes and frequent visits to her four children, including Theo Dahl, who lives with his wife, Madeleine, and their baby daughter in Fort Myers.especially notable because it marked her return after a series of strokes in 1965 left the 39-year-old comatose and partially paralyzed. In addition to resuming her career, Neal became a champion for stroke victims; a rehabilitation center in Knoxville, Tenn., bears her name.

These days, Neal, 80, divides her time between her New York and Martha's Vineyard homes and frequent visits to her four children, including Theo Dahl, who lives with his wife, Madeleine, and their baby daughter in Fort Myers.

Q: Do you do anything special in Fort Myers?

A: My son and I like to gamble on the [casino] boat. I love it. We go there once a week. I like to play the slot machine.

Q: You were born in Knoxville?

A: No, I was born in a mining camp in Kentucky. It no longer exists. It was on the Tennessee/Kentucky line. Patsy Louise Neal was my name, but I changed it.

Q: What actors do you enjoy watching?

A: Oh darling, don't ask me that question. When I had the stroke it affected my name memory, and I couldn't even remember a name if I wanted to.

Q: What inspired you to become an actress?

A: I went to a Methodist church when I was about 10, and a lovely lady was giving monologues. Well, I thought that was the greatest thing I'd ever heard in my life. My heart was pounding, and I wanted to study drama. Happily, my father's boss's daughter had just come back from New York and was teaching drama, so I started studying with her. Then I got in a play, and then I did realize I wanted to be an actress.

Q: Do you prefer stage or film?

A: I wanted to be a stage actor. That's where I came first was [to] Broadway. I was very lucky; I got a job almost at once. When I was [in New York] three months, I started, and I was employed all my life, really, until I had my stroke.

Q: If today's culture of celebrity and paparazzi

had existed then, would you still have gone into movies?

A: Oh, listen: if you want to be an actress, you're an actress. That's what I wanted to be. No one could talk me out of it.

Q: What role did you find most rewarding?

A: I liked doing the one in Hud; it won me an Oscar. And I liked doing the one in Breakfast at Tiffany's-no, no, no, not that one-The Subject was Roses. And there was one I did in England years ago on television, called the Days and Nights of Bee Finsternmaker, and I loved doing that.

Q: Can you discuss your strokes and

recovery?

A: It was 40 years ago. I was pregnant with Lucy. I had Lucy in Oxford at the hospital there. It's a horrible thing to go through. I hope nobody who's close to you ever has it.

Q: Do people think of strokes as affecting only older people?

A: I was 39 when I had one, and my sister had one 15 years after I did, but hers was not as bad as mine. I can't see out of the right side of my right eye. I walk with a terrible limp, so I'll never be perfect again, but I'm about as good as I can be. [Victims are] affected differently. It hit me in [the left side of] my head, and I was not expected to speak, but I sure can speak. I worked with Valerie Eaton Griffith, [rehabilitation pioneer and author of A Stroke in the Family]. She was a great teacher.

Q: What advice do you have for stroke victims and their families?

A: [After a stroke] a lot of people just rest in a chair until the day they die, and that is terrible. You don't want to work, but you must work, work, work. I was just gaga and didn't want to do one thing. My ex-husband [Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory] pushed me into it. He wanted me to work again. I loathed the first week [back at work] and about the second week I began to like it, and in the end I loved doing it more than anything in the world.

Q: Was it difficult getting work after your stroke?

A: Oh, no. I had a lot of offers, but life was really difficult.

Q: Is there any role you'd still like to play?

A: I wanted to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. I'm a little old for that now. I did it in the Actors Studio. I did it magnificently, but it never happened. If anybody were to offer me a job, I would love to [consider] it.