The marquees of Broadway theaters will be dimmed in memory of Patricia Neal for one minute on August 17 at exactly 8:00PM. The Tony- and Oscar-winning actress died of cancer on August 8 at age 84.
Charlotte St. Martin, Executive Director of the Broadway League, noted that Neal was the last surviving winner from the first Tony Award ceremony. The actress won a 1947 featured actress Tony for her Broadway debut performance as Regina Hubbard in Lillian Hellman’s Another Part of the Forest. She later appeareed on Broadway in a revival of Hellman’s The Children’s Hour in (1952) as well as in A Roomful of Roses (1955) and as Kate Keller in The Miracle Worker (1959).
Neal’s many feature films included The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Face in the Crowd, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Hud (for which she won an Academy Award) and The Subject Was Roses.
Neal is survived by her children Tessa, Ophelia, Theo and Lucy; a brother, Pete Neal; a sister, Margaret Ann VandenNoord; 10 grandchildren and step grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.