Patricia Neal: RIP

NRLC’s, Today’s News & Views, August 6, 2010.

By now probably most of you know that Oscar Award winning actress Patricia Neal died yesterday reportedly of lung cancer. I am old enough to remember many of her films, some of which are genuine classics. My own favorites occupy the two ends of the spectrum: The Day the Earth Stayed Still, and Hud, the film for which she won her Oscar.

Ms. Neal's death at age 84 is of particular relevance to us because of the abortion she had as a young actress. In a life filled with tragedies--including a child who suffered major brain injuries, another child who died from measles, and three devastating strokes--she never forgot the abortion.

The following is from introductory remarks made by Monsignor Jim Lisante at the 2003 Proudly Pro-Life Awards Dinner. I remember them like they took place yesterday.
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Monsignor Lisante:

I met Patricia Neal over 20 years ago, and we have become good friends ever since. One time when she was on my television show, I said to her, "Pat, in so many ways you are a female Job." She had, as you know, several strokes which put her in a coma for a month. She had a daughter who died of the measles at the age of seven. She had a son who was hit when he was an infant by a car in New York City, and he remains alive but brain-damaged and will be forever. Another daughter who suffered from drug and alcohol addiction; a husband who was great to her once she had the strokes, but he ultimately left her for a younger woman.

And I said, "In your life, Pat, if there was one thing you could change, what would it be?" And Patricia Neal said, "Father, none of the things you just mentioned." But she said, "Forty years ago I became involved with the actor Gary Cooper, and by him I became pregnant. As he was a married man and I was young in Hollywood and not wanting to ruin my career, we chose to have the baby aborted." She said, "Father, alone in the night for over 40 years, I have cried for my child. And if there is one thing I wish I had the courage to do over in my life, I wish I had the courage to have that baby."

Patricia Neal has put herself on the line in saying to many, many women who have experienced abortion or thought about abortion, "Don't make my mistake. Let your baby live." What's particularly painful, but poignant in this story is that some years later, Patricia became good friends with Maria Cooper, the only child of Gary Cooper and his wife. And Maria Cooper said, "You know, I know you had the affair with my father and I have long ago forgiven that. But one thing I find it hard to accept is that as an only child, I so wish that you'd had my brother or my sister. Because in so many ways, I wish so much that you had chosen life."

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