Patricia Neal, the Best Actress Oscar winner for her role as Alma, the tough housekeeper opposite Paul Newman’s callous cowboy, in the 1963 drama Hud, died Sunday at her home on Martha’s Vineyard, reports The New York Times. She was 84 and had lung cancer.

A year after her major Hollywood triumph, Neal suffered three strokes that left her semi-paralyzed and unable to speak, though she miraculously overcame the setbacks and returned to the screen – and another Oscar nomination – in 1968′s The Subject Was Roses.

Among her many memorable performances are those in 1950′s A Face in the Crowd, 1951′s The Day the Earth Stood Still and 1960′s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, as the older benefactor of the handsome young writer. Equally memorable was her role as the heiress Dominique opposite Gary Cooper’s uncompromising architect Howard Roark in 1949′s The Fountainhead, the adaptation of the Ayn Rand novel.

For three years afterward, Cooper and Neal carried on a torrid romance that ultimately ended when he refused to leave his wife and young daughter.

Pregnant with Cooper’s child in 1950, Neal underwent an agonizing back-room abortion while Cooper, anxious and soaked with sweat, waited in his car. “I’ve wept and wept over that,” Neal told PEOPLE in 1988. “That abortion is my greatest regret, but I wasn’t as gutsy as Ingrid Bergman [who scandalized Hollywood that year when she gave birth out of wedlock to Italian film director Roberto Rossellini's son]. That I, this little Southern girl, should have had the guts to do that … nevah, nevah.”

Neal was said to have remained in love with Cooper, who was 25 years her senior, the rest of her life, though in 1953 she married the former RAF pilot Roald Dahl. A writer, Dahl’s best-known works include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

The couple remained married for 30 years, until they divorced. They had five children, and, here too, tragedy struck: Neal’s infant son’s brain was damaged when a New York City taxicab struck his stroller, and a daughter died of measles. Dahl died in 1990.

Born Patsy Louise Neal in a Packard, Ky., coal-mining camp where her father was transportation manager, Neal grew up in Knoxville, where she displayed a gift for reciting monologues at church gatherings.

Between her health and her family life (the Dahl marriage broke up over his infidelity), it was a difficult life, to be sure. Yet, sitting in her New York apartment at the age of 62, Neal told PEOPLE: “I love life, though I know death is around the corner. But two fortunetellers have told me I’ll live until I’m 95. Don’t you suppose if two tell you the same thing, that that means something?” After she tapped the floor with her walking cane for emphasis, she added, “I don’t know what’s around the corner for me, but I hope it will be gorgeous.”

- people.com

You’d better hurry if you want to see the hats, shoes, dresses and immaculate gloves that were an essential element of the style which made Grace Kelly a fashion beacon for millions of women around the world.

The “Grace Kelly: Style Icon” exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert museum will be closing its doors in September, so there are only a few weeks left to see the clothes, mementoes and videos which replay the life of Hollywood royalty turned real-life princess.

Set in the museum’s fashion section, the show holds more than 35 of Kelly’s outfits made by famous designers such as Edith Head, Helen Rose, Yves Saint Laurent, and many by Kelly’s personal favorite, Christian Dior.

Show visitor Margret Bennett told Reuters the exhibition was a must-see for Kelly enthusiasts like her.

“Grace Kelly was the style icon of my day, and an inspiration,” she said.
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Ball gowns in silk chiffon by Dior and travel suits in wool by Coco Chanel are matched with film posters from old movies such as “To Catch A Thief”. Pictures and magazine covers depict Kelly starring in films alongside the top leading men of the day like Cary Grant, Bing Crosby or Clark Gable, and winning an academy award and floating up the red carpet.

The museum’s Fashion and Textiles Curator Jenny Lister said Kelly’s style owed its enduring appeal to her simplicity and attention to detail.

“Because she had worked as a professional model, she knew how to make clothes work in photographs and movies, and although fashion changed a huge amount through the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, she remained faithful to her fondness for classic styles,” Lister told Reuters.

“She spoke about how she thought clothes should flatter the wearer — not overwhelm.”

Each garment is placed in categories such as evening wear or travel suits in groups in glass cases, complete with pictures of Kelly wearing the item and a full analysis including designer details, date and fabric.

London fashion student Rebekah Bogle — who was sketching a number of the outfits on display — said people are fascinated by Kelly’s style because of the fairytale quality of her life story: the American commoner who became a European princess when she married Prince Rainier of Monaco.

“A lot of people like that idea of becoming something else,” the 22-year-old Bogle said.

Some cases highlight Kelly’s accessories, including one with the still sought-after “Kelly” bag made by French luxury retailer Hermes.

Other accessories include silk clutches, bags made from crocodile skin, a collection of Kelly’s sunglasses and some of her signature hats, including those worn to the glamorous fancy dress balls she and Rainier threw in the heydays of Monaco’s cool popularity during the 1960s and 70s.

A platinum and diamond tiara is the top highlight in a case full of Kelly’s jewelry, which also includes brooches and rings festooned with diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

The video footage of Kelly in two separate locations inside the exhibition remind visitors of Kelly’s famously graceful comportment in film clips from such movie classics as “High Society” to her arrival by boat for her marriage.

In the Elizabeth Taylor Biopic, she dismissed reports that Angelina Jolie nor Catherine Zeta Jones will be portraying her in a movie biopic. She insist that she was allowed to take the part during her life time.

The rumor has been swirling for a month that a film adaptation Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger’s book “Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century.”

But, Elizabeth dismisses it via message in her twitter account saying:

“Hold your horses world. I’ve been hearing all kinds of rumors about someone being cast to play me in a film about Richard and myself. No one is going to play Elizabeth Taylor, but Elizabeth Taylor herself. Not at least until I’m dead, and at the moment I’m having too much fun being alive …and I plan on staying that way. Happiness to all.”

I uploaded these a few days ago but never got around to posting about them in the updates. But I have uploaded 724 dvd captures of Show Boat starring Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, Joe E. Brown, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Agnes Moorehead, William Warfield. It is one of my mom’s & sister’s favorite musicals.

I have added 880 DVD Caps of The Seven Year Itch, starring Marilyn Monroe & Tom Ewell. Also you can see one of the infamous Marilyn Monroe scenes from the movie in the little tv above too. I am also re-arranging the Biography section too. It isn’t completed yet, so please give it a couple weeks & check back.