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. Patricia Neal, as the spinster Maura, with Nicholas Clay, as Billy Jarvis, in a scene from 'The Night Digger," specially written for her by her husband.
TN her first film role since 1968, actress Patricia
Neal appears in a film her husband, distin-
guished writer Roald Dahl, wrote specially for her.
Based on Joy Cowley's novel "Nest in a Falling Tree,"
K'S railed "The Night Digger." In it she portrays a
woman who has suffered a stroke.
In real life Pat suffered three strokes, which left her
almost completely incapacitated. In the film she helps
afflicted patients by giving them the same therapy she
received from neighbors and friends during her
convalescence.
"The Night Digger" is 45-year-old Patricia Neal's 20th
fm It recounts a relationship between a middle-aged
woman and a young man who has an uncontrollable
Psychopathic instinct for murder.
Pat phys Maura, who cares for her blind, adopted
?other, Mrs. Prince (played hy Pamela Brown), in a
'.edowa mid-Victorian mansion. In her youth, before
T* "»ry begins, Maura had a disastrous love affair during
she had a brain injury. She returned to Mrs. Prince,
**" rave her therapy but who now never ceases to remind
Maura of the debt of gratitude she owes.
One day young Billy Jarvis, played by 24 year oki
".cholas Clay, arrives at the house looking for work. He
f^y A deep and unusual relationship develops between
Maura and Billy. She falls in love with him.
From a defeated drab, resigned to being a virtual slave
her adopted mother, she changes into a pretty and
**»r»ble woman.
. In her new film. Academy Award
winning star Patricia Neal plays a
woman who has suffered a stroke . . .
in real life the actress-at the height
of her career-suffered three strokes
that left her almost completely incapaci-
tated. This is her first film in three years.
"The Night Digger" features, among others, Jean Ander-
son, Graham Crowden, and Yootha Joyce.
Patricia Neal was at the height of her screen career -
she had just won an Oscar for Best Actress in "Hud"
when she suffered three strokes. After a seven-hour brain
operation, she was in a coma for 20 days. She emerged
from it, her right side paralysed completely, unable to talk
coherently, afflicted with double vision, and her memory
destroyed.
At that time - early 1965 - she and Roa kl Dahl had a
son and two daughters. Another daughter had died of a
brain disease, aged seven. Theo, their son, had survived eight
brain operations in infancy after injury in a New York
traffic accident.
For three years, with her husband constantly at ber
side, and with the help of speech therapists and friends,
she fought her way back to the will to live and work
again.
She was pregnant when she became ill, but the child, a
girl, was delivered normal and healthy a few months later.
Today there is no sign of her illness. She returned
to the screen for "The Subject Was Roses" in 1968, and in
1969 she received the Heart-of-the-Year Award of the
American Heart Association from President Johnson at a
ceremony at the White House. It was given "for her
faith, courage, and achievement . . . which have inspired
people everywhere."
The Dahls live in a white Georgian farmhouse in six
acres of orchard at Buckinghamshire, near London, with
their four children.
"I like living hi the country and bring a housewife,"
she says, "and cooking and washing, then going off to
work when something good comes along." She docs thc
family shopping and cooking, occasionally opens fetes and
awards prizes, and breeds free-flying parakeets. There is
httir socialising, there are no big London parties
Of her lost years Pat speaks now with controlled
emotion: "When something dreadful happens to you, you
can't understand it at first. These things only happen to
other people. Then it happens to you, and you fight. You
don't crack up, because other people are involved. Break-
ing down is a luxury you can afford only when you are
completely alone. You never get over these things, but you
learn to live with them."
. "The Night Digger," an MGM film, has been released
in Melbourne, starts soon in Sydney, and goes to other
capital cities later.
. More color pictures overleaf

'THE NIGHT DIGGER'

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. Pictured above: Patricia Neal changes from an uninteresting
spinster into a pretty and desirable woman after she meets a
young lover in "The Night Digger." Below, Patricia, as drab
Maura, in a scene from the film with Pamela Brown, who
plays her selfish adopted mother, and Nicholas Clay, who
plays the psychopath with whom Maura falls in love.

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