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Check out these Updates from Armchair Commentary for August 9, 2010.

Oscar-Winning Actress Patricia Neal Dies at Age 84 August 9, 2010 Patricia Neal, the sultry-voiced Oscar winning actress who made a giant mark in American film in the '50s and '60s, has died in Massachusetts at age 84. Neal was born Jan. 20, 1926, in Packard, Kentucky. She left her small-town roots at a young age, and began her career on Broadway. She moved to Hollywood in the '40s, and worked steadily, dazzling audiences in films as varied as 1949's The Fountainhead, based on the Ayn Rand novel; the 1951 science fiction The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd in 1957. She starred alongside Paul Newman in 1963's Hud, for which she won an Academy Award for her fierce, nuanced, and unforgiving performance. But just two years later, she suffered a series of debilitating strokes when she was just 39. Her determination to recover from the strokes was widely watched and admired, and she eventually resumed her acting career. She made a spectacular return to the screen after her strokes in 1968, winning an Oscar nomination for her performance in the downbeat drama The Subject Was Roses. In 1971, she played Olivia Walton in The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, the made-for-TV film that served as the pilot for the CBS series The Waltons. It earned Neal the first of her three Emmy nominations. Of her determination to recover after her strokes, she once said, "I was born stubborn--that's all." In 1999, she told the Associated Press, "You can't give up... You sure want to, sometimes." More movies by Patricia Neal --A.T. Hurley

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