Aaron Tracy
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Probably didn't help that Cooper was good buddies with Dahl's writing hero, Hemingway.
It messed with Dahl's confidence.
When I was in my 20s, a young movie star flirted with my girlfriend at lunch in LA, and I couldn't sleep for a week.
So how the hell is Dahl gonna get over this giant obstacle standing in the way of his being able to finally get married, settle down, start a family?
His reaction is to follow Neil around like a pathetic puppy dog.
Neil is rehearsing a play when she begins dating Dahl.
Dahl hangs around the empty theater every day, then nips back to her dressing room.
When the play opens, he goes to almost every performance, clapping wildly, then taking her out for supper afterwards or to a party with her friends.
The man who seduced his way across D.C.
and New York has become a clingy, needy boyfriend.
To understand why Dahl is acting this way, why he's so sure Neil is the only woman for him and he has to fight for her, I gotta tell you a little more about her.
When she was 20, the age when people are acting in bad college productions of experimental theater, Neal was already on Broadway.
She won all the major awards as Best Broadway Actress of 1946, which directly led to famous, mustachioed movie mogul Jack Warner signing her to a long-term contract.
The new Garbo, Warner repeated over and over to anyone that would listen.
Neal goes on to make over 30 films in her career, but the two I deeply love are HUD and Breakfast at Tiffany's.
In HUD, she plays a long-suffering housekeeper abused by young Paul Newman.
She's incredible in it, so strong while so vulnerable, and goes toe-to-toe with Newman, which is not an easy task.