Patricia Neal

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty eight, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My Castaway this week is an actress whose life has been a mixture of professional success and private tragedy. The success in Hollywood and on Broadway, she appeared in many distinguished roles, including an Oscar winning performance opposite Paul Newman in HUD.

Presenter0:44

In private, however, she's often found her life, despite five children and a long marriage to the author Roald Arle, painful and humiliating.

Presenter0:53

She suffered three near fatal strokes, but she fought back to appear once more in public, to be once more a wife and a mother, only to find finally that her husband wanted to divorce her and to marry a close friend.

Presenter1:08

Now, aged sixty two, she lives in America, where, alone, she has begun to come to terms with her bittersweet memories. She is Patricia

Presenter1:19

Patricia, I know there's been a great deal of joy in your life too, but running through it there is this catalogue of tragedies. Do you feel that you've suffered more than your fair share?

Patricia Neal1:29

I sure do. Ha ha.

Patricia Neal1:32

But I mean, I can laugh about it. I've got to laugh about it because, I mean, if I didn't, I'd I would have killed myself some years ago.

Patricia Neal1:41

But you know, it's uh it it's sad, but it happens.

Presenter1:45

The word gutsy is one that crops up time and again when one reads about you. It's a very American word. Is have you always been gutsy? Were you gutsy as a child? I really think I have been.

Patricia Neal1:57

I mean, it's an extraordinary thing to say, but I really think I was.

Patricia Neal2:01

Everything I wanted I fought for, but I didn't always get it now. Let's not forget that.

Presenter2:06

Well, you'll need to be gutsy on our desert island to combat all of the problems. It's quite a pleasant tropical island, I should say.

Patricia Neal2:14

Say

Presenter2:15

Is it going to pose you any worries, or are you looking forward to being a castaway?

Patricia Neal2:19

Well, uh I the idea of being alone is sort of uh scary, but maybe I'd like it in the end.

Presenter2:27

You're alone now.

Patricia Neal2:28

You did right.

Presenter2:30

Yeah.

Patricia Neal2:30

Uh

Presenter2:30

A

Presenter2:31

So you're at peace now with your own company, are you? Yes, I am.

Patricia Neal2:35

You know, I love to be with people really, but I I don't mind being alone at times.

Presenter2:40

Now is the music going to help you on the island?

Patricia Neal2:43

Oh yes, very muchly so.

Presenter2:46

I learned that.

Patricia Neal2:46

I like Gershwin's Rhapsody in blue.

Presenter2:50

Shall we have that one first? Let's do that.

Patricia Neal2:52

Yeah.

Presenter2:52

Uh

Presenter3:52

Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue played by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with Andrei Previn as soloist and conductor.

Presenter4:00

Patricia, one of your early films was one that we hear mentioned quite often these days, and and and not it has to be said because you were in it, but because Ronald Reagan was in it, The Hasty Heart.

Patricia Neal4:10

Do a

Presenter4:10

Jim Richard.

Patricia Neal4:10

Damn right.

Patricia Neal4:12

That was a very interesting time in my life. It really was. You stayed at the Savoy together? We stayed at the Savoy in adjoining rooms. Actually, they were better than the rooms. They were suites. It was really we had a good time. So you you painted the town red together, did you? Well we did occasionally you see because he was uh um I mean Jane Wyman was divorcing him and uh and that was very painful for him. And of course, I mean I had a private life too. So we just went around together. What was Ronald Reagan like in those days?

Patricia Neal4:48

Oh he was a very good man he really was. He was very friendly.

Patricia Neal4:53

and a great entertainer.

Patricia Neal4:56

He was a you know, he was a good date.

Patricia Neal4:59

But nothing romantic.

Presenter5:01

Yeah.

Patricia Neal5:01

I think

Presenter5:02

No, I believe you, I believe you.

Patricia Neal5:03

Believe it

Presenter5:04

Let's go back to to to long before that, to the beginning. Patsy Neal from Tennessee. How did she know she wanted to be an actress?

Patricia Neal5:14

Well, it's just that I was in church one evening in Methodist church and I was

Patricia Neal5:20

In the basement and this dear woman, she gave monologues. My golly, I my heart was pounding, my eyes filled with tears. I could hardly wait to study dramatics. Well, my father's boss's daughter, she'd just come back from New York and she taught dramatic lessons and I began to give monologues and I loved it. You like showing off? Yes, I do. I've had we all have problems and w one of mine is showing off.

Presenter5:50

I wanna mine this sh

Patricia Neal5:53

Yeah.

Presenter5:53

Well, I think you probably chose the right thing to show off about, didn't you? Because by by the age of twenty one you were the toast of Broadway.

Patricia Neal6:01

Well, I was lucky that way.

Presenter6:03

You were put on the front of all the magazines. You were the the brightest newcomer, they said.

Patricia Neal6:08

Well, I wasn't Elizabeth Taylor.

Patricia Neal6:12

But I give them a couple of magazine covers.

Presenter6:16

Let's have your second record.

Patricia Neal6:18

I would like Bach, you know? Uh organ music by Bach. That would be great.

Presenter7:26

Bachstekarter in D minor played by Daniel Chortzempe at the organ of Our Lady's Church, Bredar.

Presenter7:34

So Patricia Neal, it was 1947 and you hit Hollywood. Can you remember how it looked? Can you remember your first impressions?

Presenter7:41

Oh, I was thrilled.

Patricia Neal7:42

Thrilled. I was thrilled and I took a train because I was frightened of planes at that point and I took this great train when it was so

Patricia Neal7:50

Took a long time to get there, and I remember I got off in Pasadena Pasadena, California, and I was met by an agent. He took me to the Bel Air Hotel, and I had my little hat on, and my suit on and my gloves on, and I looked very good. And then um

Patricia Neal8:09

Well, and then a day all of it started to happen, but I didn't really know a lot about films in the beginning and I had to be taught. But in in the end I learned slowly, slowly how to act in films. And you loved it? Yes.

Presenter8:25

It wasn't long, though, before you you met a man who was to turn your life on its head, Gary Cooper.

Patricia Neal8:32

Mm-hmm.

Presenter8:32

How how did you meet him?

Patricia Neal8:35

Uh, well, I met him at a luncheon at W Warner Brothers. Why Jack Warner had a great luncheon with about fifty people.

Patricia Neal8:43

And I saw Gary Cooper then and I

Patricia Neal8:46

Oh I responded to him on on meeting him. And then King Vidor was just in front of the make up department when he passed me on his bicycle and he stopped.

Patricia Neal8:58

And we began to talk.

Patricia Neal9:00

And he talked to me about fifteen minutes, I think, and then he said to me

Patricia Neal9:05

Would you like to test for the fountain head?

Speaker 49:09

Ah

Patricia Neal9:10

Would I? I had read The Fountainhead at university at Northwestern I went to, and oh, I would love to. So um

Patricia Neal9:19

I tested for it, two scenes and uh I got it, which was very good.

Presenter9:24

It is uh a a classic love story, really, isn't it? Because you you and Gary Cooper were acting together.

Presenter9:32

In a film you were acting out this fictional love, which in fact became a reality.

Patricia Neal9:37

Yes, because I I really adored him and he did me too. We didn't get started while the film was going on. But when the film finished we had

Patricia Neal9:50

Our first night together. And then it it went on for five years. He was quite.

Presenter9:57

He was quite a lot he was quite a lot older than he was.

Patricia Neal10:00

Yes, he was twenty five years older than me, but that was nothing in those days. When you're young, you don't know what you shouldn't have.

Patricia Neal10:08

And happily I didn't have it really.

Presenter10:11

What was it that you loved about him?

Patricia Neal10:13

He was so witty he really had great wit.

Patricia Neal10:17

And his movements were fantastic and he had fabulous eyes and he to me he was the beauty of the world.

Presenter10:26

But he also had a wife.

Patricia Neal10:27

Well yeah he sure did.

Patricia Neal10:30

And I did not have sense enough to know it, and I'm sorry that I made all those mistakes in life.

Patricia Neal10:37

But you make'em, you make'em.

Presenter10:40

For a long time you managed to keep your affair very secret, didn't you? But eventually it came out.

Patricia Neal10:44

Yeah.

Patricia Neal10:46

Like they all do in time.

Presenter10:48

And then finally you decided it had to end.

Patricia Neal10:51

Yes, I did. He'd gone to New York.

Patricia Neal10:55

And I spoke to a friend and he told me that he was in the hospital.

Patricia Neal11:00

from ulcers which he got from all the torture that we had been going through.

Patricia Neal11:07

Then I made the mistake of calling his mother, who I knew, and we'd gone by and seen her quite often, and she did not know about us, but now she knew. And she was um

Patricia Neal11:19

She was not polite to me. She said, uh

Patricia Neal11:22

You know, you're a terrible woman, the fact that you have done this to my son. And and I don't blame him. So she made me know that I had to end it.

Presenter11:32

And finally you made the call to him and you ended it.

Patricia Neal11:36

I did. I did. And

Patricia Neal11:39

When I hung up that phone it was like love

Patricia Neal11:43

A hundred years in a second.

Presenter11:47

Was he the only man you ever loved?

Patricia Neal11:49

Well, yes, in the begin b for b for some years, but then I I also loved Ruel Dahl, who I married.

Patricia Neal11:57

We were married many years.

Presenter11:59

As we shall hear. Let's have your third record.

Patricia Neal12:02

Ah You know who I like. I like cold porter. You kn do you remember Begin the Begin? Oh, that was lovely.

Patricia Neal12:12

And Ella Fitzgerald on

Speaker 412:14

Oh I I love that. To live it again is past all endeavour Except when that too

Speaker 412:27

Clutches my heart And there we are, swearing to love forever

Speaker 412:38

And promising never, never to fly.

Presenter12:46

Cole Porter's Begin the Begin, sung by Who Else But Ella Fitzgerald.

Presenter12:52

Patricia Neal.

Presenter12:54

After the affair with Gary Cooper, you with a broken heart went off back to uh Broadway, and almost really on the rebound you met a a young man called Roald Arle.

Patricia Neal13:07

Yes, I met him at uh Lillian Hellman's house because I obviously had to get a job because I was not a rich woman and I had spent my money that I'd made almost all of it. But I read in the paper that Lillian, who was in another part of the forest I'd been in,

Patricia Neal13:25

And Kermit Bloomgarden was the producer, and I noticed from from the paper that they were going to do her The Children's Hour, which was her first play. And I called Kermit and he s I said, May I come and read? Yeah, you can come, you know, not thinking he would employ me.

Patricia Neal13:42

And I came and I read

Patricia Neal13:45

Fearlessly. I don't know what a miracle happened, and so I could choose my part. Lillian invited me to supper at her house, and I went there. I knew that a couple of other people would be there. Well, it turned out to be a fabulous party, and and I met Royaldahl that night, and um

Patricia Neal14:06

I thought he was very handsome, and I said to Lillian,

Patricia Neal14:10

Who's that tall man? and she shouted, Roaldal at the top of her voice and and um but I didn't like him. I sat beside him at supper. I mean, that was her seating and he just didn't even talk to me. He really talked to Leonard Bernstein across the table and so when I went home I didn't want to ever see him again.

Patricia Neal14:33

But I had to.

Patricia Neal14:35

Because he called me?

Patricia Neal14:37

And uh

Patricia Neal14:38

He invited me out and I di I didn't want to go, not for one minute, so I said, Oh, I'm sorry, I can't go Then I made made the mistake of saying thank you for calling.

Patricia Neal14:48

So he called back again, and I couldn't think of an excuse, so I went out, and that's how it started.

Presenter14:54

So if all this is true, how come you ended up marrying him?

Patricia Neal14:58

I was in his room, his great well, when I say room, I mean his apartment. He had a sitting room, a bathroom, a kitchen and a bedroom.

Presenter15:02

Uh

Speaker 115:02

But

Presenter15:05

Uh

Patricia Neal15:07

And um

Patricia Neal15:08

He had picture of his nephew and his twin.

Patricia Neal15:14

nieces and well, I just adored their looks. I mean they were the children I wanted.

Patricia Neal15:22

And I thought, well, now if he can give me children like that, I will marry him.

Patricia Neal15:29

And that's why you

Presenter15:30

Did it?

Patricia Neal15:30

Yeah, that's why I did it originally.

Presenter15:33

You've written Patricia about your life with Roll in the most devastatingly frank detail.

Presenter15:39

Why did you want to do that? Why why did you want to make public all those private moments?

Patricia Neal15:44

You mean I should be ashamed of myself for doing this?

Patricia Neal15:50

No, it's just that I was...

Patricia Neal15:53

At a nunnery?

Patricia Neal15:55

And uh uh Lady Abbas she said, You must talk and and talk about it, write about it, just because it was torturing me what had happened to my marriage.

Patricia Neal16:07

Actually we live very well for about oh.

Patricia Neal16:11

Was it seven years when I had uh my uh children? I didn't I have two years for me to have my Olivia, and then another two years to have Tessa, and then three years to have my son.

Patricia Neal16:25

and life was just glorious and then

Patricia Neal16:29

then tragedy started to happen.

Presenter16:32

Let's have your fourth record.

Patricia Neal16:33

I would love Edith Pief.

Presenter17:07

Edith Piaf singing La Vien Rose.

Presenter17:10

Well, as you said, um, tragedy eventually struck in your life. It was in december nineteen sixty, wasn't it, that your third child, Theo, who was four months old, was being pushed out in his pram in New York by a nanny.

Patricia Neal17:23

Yes.

Patricia Neal17:24

She had walked uh to the school to get Tessa, for kindergarten it was, and

Patricia Neal17:32

They were on their way home, and I was in the A and P, which was the grocer store.

Patricia Neal17:38

and I heard a siren go by, and I thought, Oh, what is it? and I looked and I saw a police car whizzing by.

Patricia Neal17:46

And I thought, thank God, for some reason. And then when I got to the the corner with great groceries in my hand, I I our daily woman was there and she said, Oh, Mrs. Dahl, I'm so sorry to tell you, but your son was hit by a taxi and he's been rushed to the hospital. And we rushed to the the hospital and we were told that Theo would die.

Patricia Neal18:13

And th the fact that that he didn't after all those years and all those operations and

Patricia Neal18:22

is a miracle, really.

Presenter18:25

But then, two years later, a child of yours did die.

Patricia Neal18:29

Yes. We were living in England.

Patricia Neal18:33

and my daughter, who was seven, and measles, started at school.

Patricia Neal18:38

And I know that Olivia she handed me a note saying so when I was in the car with her, and I read it and a strange feeling came over me.

Patricia Neal18:48

And uh but we could not get any injections to see that she would not get it.

Patricia Neal18:55

Uh and my Olivia died from it.

Presenter18:59

You must have been devastated.

Patricia Neal19:00

I mean, it was just terrible and and

Patricia Neal19:04

Ruala, I mean, he was uh he was j just tortured. As was I, you know. Never get over it, really. But, you know, c it gets better, better after all these years, you know, it's got to.

Patricia Neal19:18

It's twenties.

Patricia Neal19:20

Twenty some years now and and it's

Presenter19:23

Let's have another record.

Patricia Neal19:24

All right, let us have Frank Sinatra singing a one for my baby.

Speaker 419:33

We're drinking my friend

Patricia Neal19:33

Right.

Speaker 419:37

To the end.

Speaker 419:40

Of a brief episode.

Speaker 419:47

Make it one.

Speaker 419:49

For my baby

Speaker 419:53

And one more

Speaker 419:55

For the roof.

Presenter20:01

Frank Sinatra singing One for My Baby

Presenter20:04

Well, things happened to you quite quickly after Olivia's death. First of all, a wonderful thing. You won an Oscar.

Patricia Neal20:10

Yes, that was lovely, wasn't it? dear Martin Ridd.

Patricia Neal20:15

He sent me a script.

Patricia Neal20:18

And I read it and I would uh liked very much to have done it, but

Patricia Neal20:23

Doing the fact that our daughter died and my son was very damaged, I mean, it was impossible for me to go off for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Patricia Neal20:31

So he said, uh, well, would you like to go home in the middle of it?

Patricia Neal20:37

And would that help? And I said, oh yes, that would. So he said, well, you can.

Patricia Neal20:43

And that was gorgeous. And this was with Paul Newman. That was Paul Newman, Melvin Douglas and uh Brandon DeWilder.

Presenter20:52

HUD, it was called. Then you had another baby.

Patricia Neal20:52

Hunt.

Patricia Neal20:55

Yeah.

Presenter20:55

Ophelia, and then you were pregnant with a fifth child, and you were working very hard, as you described.

Patricia Neal21:01

No one knew I was pregnant. No one knew it. Uh, except Ruaul and me. And you were thirty eight years old by this stage? I was thirty nine, I think.

Presenter21:06

And you was

Patricia Neal21:11

Mhm. I'd gone to work that day and I'd just come home and I was bathing my daughter Tessa.

Patricia Neal21:18

And Ruel he had come up with a drink for me.

Patricia Neal21:22

And I was wandering about in the bedroom. I mean

Patricia Neal21:26

obviously in agony, and I was holding my head.

Patricia Neal21:31

And he said to me, What is it? And I said, I have it I'm in in great pain in my head. And and he I lay down on the bed and he knew at once what had happened to me. And he called exactly the right doctor. The surgeon who operated on me was Dr. Charles Cotton, and he is a brain doctor.

Patricia Neal21:56

And um and he

Patricia Neal21:59

operated only that night.

Patricia Neal22:01

And they expected me to die for about oh, I was unconscious for twenty one days.

Presenter22:07

And when fine you've had three strokes altogether, just

Patricia Neal22:10

I had one stroke uh when I was bathing Tessa.

Patricia Neal22:14

Then I was taken to the hospital.

Patricia Neal22:17

And then I had one in the room and then they began to X ray me and I had one on the X ray table and that's the one that really killed me because I saw double and, you know, it was

Presenter22:32

Why you? Why did it suddenly happen to you?

Patricia Neal22:35

I don't know just lucky I guess.

Patricia Neal22:38

I think it runs in the family.

Presenter22:40

So when you eventually regained a kind of consciousness after twenty-one days.

Presenter22:45

How badly damaged were you?

Patricia Neal22:49

I can't even remember. I mean I I was

Patricia Neal22:54

thoroughly paralyzed. Could you speak? No, not a word. Not a word. And I know that uh I had a nurse and her name was Jean Alexander and she was uh she was singing to me when I was in my great wheelchair and I just and she was watching me and singing and I began singing with her and that thrilled her so much. She went all over the hospital get bringing nurses back to and to have me sing with her.

Presenter23:23

So you could hear, you could understand what people were doing around you and what they were saying to you.

Patricia Neal23:29

Well, I could vaguely, but you you you ha I have no id you have no idea what happens to your brain. I mean, it it leaves you. But you did come back and uh and and you

Presenter23:39

You you did fight?

Patricia Neal23:40

Yes?

Presenter23:40

Yes, you couldn't have done it without him, without

Patricia Neal23:43

Oh no, absolutely not.

Presenter23:46

Absolutely.

Patricia Neal23:46

Uh He bullied you. Yes, he did. He's a bully.

Presenter23:46

He pulled it.

Patricia Neal23:49

Uh

Patricia Neal23:51

Yes, he did.

Presenter23:51

But he made you do it, he made you walk again, he made you talk again.

Patricia Neal23:52

But he made you do.

Patricia Neal23:54

He is

Patricia Neal23:57

And it made me uh read again. I mean, everything, you know, I I owe to him for doing that to me. Even though I desperately wanted to die for a long time I wanted to die.

Patricia Neal24:09

But uh seeing as how he uh wouldn't let me and G. O. D. wouldn't let me, uh, I now I'm I'm very happy, you see.

Patricia Neal24:18

Uh

Presenter24:18

I know that uh that You've given many talks to people who've had to cope in a similar way over the years. What do you think the single most important message is for those people?

Presenter24:29

Yeah.

Patricia Neal24:29

You can't give up. You just can't give up. Even though you want to, you've got to fight your way through it.

Speaker 124:37

Let's have another record.

Patricia Neal24:39

True Love from High Society. I love that song. I think that would be good.

Speaker 424:44

What to give to you

Speaker 424:48

Wonderful gift to me.

Speaker 424:54

Love for

Speaker 425:03

What?

Presenter25:14

Bing Crosbie and Grace Kelly with true love from High Society.

Presenter25:19

Well, Patricia, you made a a a complete recovery, in fact, and you went back into acting again and you started getting a few parts.

Presenter25:28

But your husband in the meantime had taken over the reins of the household, hadn't he?

Patricia Neal25:32

Over without question.

Presenter25:34

What was the children's attitude to you?

Patricia Neal25:37

Well, they they really I mean, they as far as they were concerned, that you know, I was just uh not uh really a m a m mother. And uh they they were just, you know, it's uh they put up with me. That was about all really.

Patricia Neal25:54

Uh and you see, I mean, Ruel, he's he just did everything for them.

Patricia Neal26:00

Ah, and I could do so little.

Patricia Neal26:03

Uh, I know that, um

Patricia Neal26:05

I I remember when when Tessa, when she went away to school, she went to Rodine and we we would b take we took her to Brighton, you see. And uh I know Tessa would be in the back seat, I would be in the front seat with Roel. Uh and Tessa would say, um,

Patricia Neal26:22

Daddy Uh Daddy.

Patricia Neal26:26

Daddy, and and never me, never me, and I would get so frustrated by it and I said, Me, me, talk to me Uh ye oh, it was j you know, it was just so and she'd say, Daddy and Daddy would say, Speak to mamma, you know, speak to speak to mother and and they just tolerated me, really.

Presenter26:46

You're a bit of a nuisance.

Patricia Neal26:47

Yes, I was a bit nuisant and I was, I mean

Presenter26:51

So that was how family life went on in in in the Dahl household. But eventually you believe that he, Roll, grew tired of you?

Patricia Neal27:01

Oh, I'm sure he did. I'm sure he did.

Presenter27:04

Do you blame him for that?

Patricia Neal27:05

I don't blame him at all. But no.

Patricia Neal27:09

I think it is sad to realize that other women came into our lives and uh

Patricia Neal27:17

Makes me sad that they did.

Presenter27:19

Yeah.

Presenter27:21

In the early eighties your marriage finally ended.

Presenter27:25

And I think that was very painful, wasn't it?

Patricia Neal27:27

Oh very.

Patricia Neal27:29

I was

Patricia Neal27:31

heartbroken. I really was. I I

Patricia Neal27:34

Uh the fact that someone could take Rua Dahl away from me after all these years.

Patricia Neal27:43

It it really, you know, it it broke my heart because I was so close to Ruaul and his family for years. I mean, it was like like they were mine.

Patricia Neal27:53

There was thirty years we were married and all, and that's a lot of years to have to begin your life all over again.

Patricia Neal28:01

But you've done that. Yes, I've done it, and I'm very happy now.

Presenter28:07

Your seventh record, please.

Patricia Neal28:08

Oh, let's have down in the valley.

Patricia Neal28:12

It it's so so good. I'd love that to be played.

Speaker 428:18

Be your land.

Speaker 428:23

Send it by Mail.

Presenter28:39

Birmingham Jail sung by the famous Nashville artists. You know that, that.

Patricia Neal28:44

That is from my home or near about. I'm I am from the South of America and uh Nashville and Knoxville and all those towns, they mean a lot to me.

Presenter28:58

Patricia near it is, as we said at the beginning, a a long and and very tragic story.

Presenter29:04

Where has God been in all of this? Have you found comfort in Him?

Patricia Neal29:09

I was very angry with God when I woke up.

Patricia Neal29:14

I I wasn't bright enough to know what I was angry with, but as time went by I began to know that I really I did not believe in him, I loathed him and and that sort of thing. But

Patricia Neal29:30

As time passed, I do think, you know, I think there must be one. There must be one. And the world we live in is just staggering.

Patricia Neal29:41

I mean, and the flowers. When you think of the flowers and and and the trees and the fish and the everything in the world, it's a staggering world we live in.

Presenter29:52

So you'll find you'll find yourself now able to be philosophical about everything that happened.

Patricia Neal29:57

Oh yes.

Presenter29:58

Yeah.

Patricia Neal29:58

Yeah.

Presenter29:58

Yeah.

Patricia Neal29:59

Yeah.

Presenter29:59

Still a spark of anger in the

Patricia Neal30:00

There's a little spark left, you know.

Presenter30:02

Ah

Presenter30:03

Uh

Presenter30:04

And the future? You're going to get married again? Oh, please never.

Patricia Neal30:09

Never, never, never. I think thirty years is a long time being married. I think that's enough for me. And you're happy on your own? Oh yes, I'm very happy on my own.

Patricia Neal30:18

Yeah.

Presenter30:18

What about professionally, though? What's the ambition there? Another Oscar?

Patricia Neal30:22

Oh, I would love another one. Uh but I think I'd better act to get one, don't you? I would love to to have some one uh send me a script.

Patricia Neal30:32

And I would love to read it and say, What a fabulous part You know. I I I adore acting.

Presenter30:39

Right, let's have your last record. Yeah.

Patricia Neal30:40

Ah, yes.

Patricia Neal30:42

You know what I love is black is the colour of my true love's hair.

Speaker 430:59

Here's the colour.

Speaker 431:03

Oh, my true loves.

Presenter31:16

Black is the colour of my true love's hair sung by Joan Byers.

Presenter31:20

So Patricia Neal, this is the moment of decision. Which of all of those eight records would you like to have more than any of the others?

Patricia Neal31:28

I like the last one. Black is the colour of my true lover's hair. I think to me it's a fabulous song.

Presenter31:37

Now you've got to choose a book, and we give you on the island the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible. What else can we give you?

Patricia Neal31:44

Well, you know what I think would be very good. I think short stories. I mean, th th that would be much better because then you'd have a lot of writers.

Speaker 431:53

See ya.

Patricia Neal31:54

And I would include Roald Orr for one short story. And then there's Estelle Perlman, there's J D Salinger, there's Truman Capote, and there's

Presenter32:05

Right, we shall collect them up for you and uh put them in a specially bound volume collected short stories for Patricia Neale.

Patricia Neal32:09

Collected short.

Presenter32:12

And finally, your luxury.

Presenter32:14

I think

Patricia Neal32:14

I think it would be a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Presenter32:20

Yeah.

Patricia Neal32:20

Because I hate filthy teeth. And I would hate to lose them.

Presenter32:26

Thank you very much indeed, Patricia Neal, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 132:38

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.