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Celebrating television's This Is Your Life

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THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Patricia Neal, actress, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the office of Sir John Woolf on London's Park Lane, during a cocktail party to launch a new series of Anglia Television's Tales of the Unexpected, written by her husband, Roald Dahl.

Patricia, who was born in Kentucky, USA, began her career on stage in New York, making her Broadway debut in 1946 before moving to Hollywood, where she found fame through a run of leading roles in such films as The Day The Earth Stood Still, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Hud, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

While pregnant in 1965, Patricia suffered a stroke and was in a coma for three weeks. She recovered with the help of her husband, writer Roald Dahl, and friends who developed a gruelling style of therapy that fundamentally changed the way stroke patients were treated. She relearned how to walk and talk, and by 1968 her recovery was so complete that her performance in the film The Subject Was Roses led to an Academy Award nomination.

"Who knew this?"

programme details...

• Edition No: 502
• Subject No: 500
• Broadcast date: Wed 13 Dec 1978
• Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
• Recorded: Wed 22 Nov 1978
• Venue: New London Theatre
• Series: 19
• Edition: 8
• Code name: Hud

on the guest list...

• Roald Dahl - husband
• Elaine Stritch
• Joseph Cotten
• Patricia Medina
• Marius Goring
• Wendy Hiller
• Richard Greene
• Lucy - daughter
• Ophelia - daughter
• Theo - son
• Tessa - daughter
• Pete - brother
• Margaret - sister
• George - brother-in-law
• Eura - mother
• Helen Horton
• Wally Saunders
• Valerie Eaton Griffith
• Else Logsdail - sister-in-law
• Alfhild Hansen - sister-in-law
• Asta Anderson - sister-in-law
• Marjorie Clipstone
• Frankie Conquy
• Pam Lowndes
• Angela Hogg
• Dick Kirwan
• Patricia Kirwan
• Audrey Ray-Smith
• Jane Figg
• Kenneth Haigh
• Emily Faust
Filmed tributes:
• John Wayne
• Sophie - granddaughter
• Kirk Douglas
• Dr Charles Carton

related appearance...

• Richard Todd - Nov 1988

production team...

• Researchers: Debbie Gaunt, Maurice Leonard
• Writer: John Sandilands
• Directors: Royston Mayoh, Terry Yarwood
• Producer: Jack Crawshaw

• names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

The Glamorous Life

Hollywood in the spotlight

Screenshots of Patricia Neal This Is Your Life

Patricia Neal recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, As I Am...

Back in England, Roald took me to a formal party at Sir John Woolf's office. Sir John was producing Roald's short stories as a TV series called 'Tales of the Unexpected'.

There were scads of British stars there who had appeared in the shows. Midway through the party, an unfamiliar man with a large red album under his arm interrupted an enjoyable conversation I was having.

That was a bit much, I thought.

The man was Eamonn Andrews, the host of the British This Is Your Life television programme, and it was my life they were doing then and there. So that was the reason for Roald's mysterious chauffeured-limousine trips to London!

It seemed that everyone who had ever been in my life had been gathered. Mother and NiNi, the whole Neal family and Emily Mahan Faust were flown in from America. Roald's family and half of Great Missenden were there. Even Dr Charles Carton, Kirk Douglas and Duke Wayne sent greetings on film. It was fabulous – on television.

It was a private fiasco, however. We did not have room at Gypsy House to put up my family because all the children were home on holiday. Mother was crushed. Once safely home, she let me know with an angry letter. When Roald saw it, a lifetime of antagonism between them burst like a ripe boil. He dictated a scathing letter saying we would never see her again. I was not prepared to cut Mother out of my life over a misunderstanding, but I still could not take a stand against my husband. The letter was sent.

Stephen Michael Shearer recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Patricia Neal: A Unquiet Life...

In London the night of November 22, Roald and Patricia attended a cocktail party at the London Park Lane home of Sir John Woolf, who was producing Roald's new British television series, Tales of the Unexpected. At the soiree were several of the shows' stars: Dame Wendy Hiller, Kenneth Haigh, Richard Greene, Elaine Stritch, Patricia Medina and her husband Joseph Cotten, and Marius Goring. Then television personality Eamonn Andrews, host of Thames Television's This Is Your Life, joined the party, and to no one's surprise but Patricia's, the night became hers. She was the show's subject.

Taken to the television studio, Patricia found that many people from her life had been flown in for the occasion. She was delighted to see her mother, Eura; sister, NiNi, and her husband, George; her brother, Pete; Helen Horton; and Valerie Eaton Griffith. Emily Mahan Faust had flown from Knoxville with Eura Neal; also present were such family members and close friends as Alfhild Hansen, Elisa Logsdail, Asta Anderson, Margery Clipstone, Brigadier Richard and Patricia Kirwan, Audrey Ray-Smith, Angela Hogg, Jane Figg, Pam Lowndes, Frankie Conquy, and Wally Saunders, who talked about "the house that Wally built." Of course Tessa, Theo, Ophelia, and Lucy, as well as a film clip of little Sophie, were included in the program. Also featured were filmed messages from Dr Charles Carton and Patricia's former leading men John Wayne and Kirk Douglas.

Throughout the show, Dahl looked bored and distracted. What viewers didn't see was a shocking gesture on Roald's part. Since her stroke, Patricia had developed a habit while she was seated of taking the hand of someone standing near her and, when she was at a loss for words, kissing the person's hand. At the end of the broadcast, as the credits for This Is Your Life - Patricia Neal were rolling, Patricia reached for Roald. He yanked his hand away from her and shoved it in his pocket. (This Is Your Life - Patricia Neal aired on December 13, 1978.)

Patricia recalled that the evening was an emotionally moving experience. After the taping, though, tensions flared. There were not enough rooms at Gipsy House to house the entire family because the children were home for the holidays. Eura was disappointed with these arrangements, and when she arrived back home in the States, she wasted little time in sending Patricia a letter deploring what had happened. Roald exploded and sent Eura a scathing reply telling her they never wanted to see her again.

Jeremy Treglown recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Roald Dahl: A Biography...

In 1978 Patricia Neal was the subject of a This Is Your Life program. Dahl sat beside her throughout, eyes hooded, mouth turned down, while family and friends joined them on the platform to pay tribute. Hollywood stars appeared on video - John Wayne, Kirk Douglas (who delivered his message sitting on a horse). Eamonn Andrews, the host, jauntily urged everyone to reminisce about Roald and his "young bride," and their early years in the sleepy village of Great Missenden. Wally Saunders made jokes about the successive reconstructions of Gipsy House. The entire band of Pat's volunteer therapists streamed in. Pat loved it all - particularly when the fourteen-year-old Ophelia said, to her evident surprise, "I don't think anyone realises how lucky we all are." The only hint of what sounded like irony came from Kenneth Haigh, an actor friend of the Dahls who was a neighbour in Great Missenden and who referred to Roald as "Big Daddy Survivor himself." But for those in the know, there was an unambiguous giveaway at the end, as the crowd milled around and the credits rolled. With tears of affection and gratitude in her eyes, Pat leaned over to kiss her husband's left hand. He pulled it away and stuffed it into his pocket.

Donald Sturrock recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Storyteller - The Life of Roald Dahl...

In 1978, Pat was featured on the television show This Is Your Life, in which well-known personalities unexpectedly reencounter their pasts. Various Hollywood and theatrical stars joined Pat's schoolteachers, her friends and family in paying tribute to her career and to her extraordinary recovery. Roald sat through the whole self-congratulatory jamboree with a studiedly grumpy expression on his face. At the end of it, Pat affectionately reached for his hand. He pointedly withdrew it and put it back in his pocket. She was mortified. But for Roald the celebration simply reminded him what a charade his public existence had become. He missed Liccy terribly and felt daily deprived of his greatest pleasure, her company. He ached for her physically and yearned for her conversation. Above all, he missed the "gentle warmth" of the love that he had discovered so late in life and that had been taken away from him so swiftly. Almost constant pain from his back exacerbated this sense of injustice and brought out the quarrelsome, cantankerous side of his nature. It was a dark period. Even Ophelia began to notice that her father's "lightness" had disappeared. Weekends home from school seemed to drag, she remembered. When Pat's mother wrote to complain that she had been excluded from staying at Gipsy House during the preparations for This Is Your Life, Roald dictated a scathing letter telling Eura Neal neither he nor Pat ever wanted to see her again. Pat felt as if "a lifetime of antagonism between them had burst like a ripe boil".