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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. On the Look Back At It podcast. 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year.
I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to Look Back at It on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dick and Paul show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand.
Better version of play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Yes. Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time. I actually, I thought it was. I got that wrong.
But hey, no one's perfect. We're pretty close, though. Listen to the Nick Dick and Paul show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us.
From iHeart Podcast, Saigon. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? One city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart.
It's for Vietnam. They're pouring petrol all over here. Freedom for Vietnam! There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything.
Listen to Saigon on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Chapter 2: How did Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal first meet?
She's seated him next to a 26-year-old who he recognizes from magazine covers. It's not an exaggeration to say she's one of the most beautiful women in the world. Neil has already acted in major Broadway plays, winning a Tony for one that Hellman wrote. But Dahl recognizes her from the movies. Hollywood, of course, has snapped Neil up and decided to make her a star.
She's now one of those incredibly rare actresses who gets critical praise and big box office. She's like the Amy Adams of her time, reddish hair and all. As we've heard, Dahl is no stranger to dating movie stars. But this one's different. Neil is a force. Watching some of her old films, it's easy to see why she's so in demand. Whenever she's on screen, she forces you to look at her.
When she moves, your eyes move with her, no matter which other huge movie stars are in the frame. And it's the same in real life. Dahl is so nervous looking at her in the chair next to his. It's one of the few times in his life he's actually tongue-tied. He decides he can't just hit on her like every guy she meets. That won't make him stand out.
He does some quick calculations in his head and comes up with an ingenious idea right there on the spot. Here's what he'll do. He'll totally and completely ignore her. Throughout the entire dinner, Dahl focuses on Leonard Bernstein, pretending Neil is an empty chair, even when she tries to involve herself in their argument. But that doesn't mean he's not entirely focused on Neil.
He's observing her, watching how she carries herself, taking mental notes and storing them away for future use, like he does with everything that intrigues him. By the time entrees are served, Dahl's mind is made up.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Dahl face in pursuing Neal?
He's found his wife. There's just one problem. The next morning, he calls Lillian Hellman and gets Neil's phone number. He hangs up, and like a nervous 15-year-old with sweaty palms, he dials her. He clears his throat several times, smooths out his hair, takes a deep breath. It's so unlike him to be anything but confident and calm approaching a woman. He kind of likes this new feeling, though.
His juices are flowing in a way they usually don't. When Neil answers, he doesn't make small talk. He barely tells her who's calling. He just jumps in and asks her to dinner. Remembering how incredibly rude he was to her the night before, Neil can't compute this. She takes a pause long enough to light a cigarette, rejects him outright, and then hangs up.
But of course, rejection doesn't really bother Dahl. Remember how many times he's going to fail in Hollywood before James Bond comes around? Same thing here. He's decided this is what he wants. This is the rare woman he can actually imagine committing to. But all his suaveness and swagger elude him. Dahl waits two days and calls Neil again and asks her out again. She says no again.
She decided at the dinner party that Dahl was someone not to know. He can't believe it. It honestly never occurred to him that she might reject him. It's just not how life has gone for him so far. It reminds me of the story my favorite director, Mike Nichols, tells about casting The Graduate.
He wanted his main character, Benjamin Braddock, to realistically be someone who strikes out with women his own age, which leads him to have an affair with his mother's friend, Mrs. Robinson. Nichols auditioned Robert Redford for the role. Giving him direction, he said to Redford, you know how it feels when a girl turns you down for a date? Redford responded, what do you mean?
That's when they turned instead to Dustin Hoffman, who created one of the more iconic performances ever. Like Redford, Dahl doesn't get rejected. He's been bouncing between actresses, heiresses, and congresswomen for a decade. And now he can't even get a date. What is happening? Two days later, he shamelessly calls Neil again.
And this third time, she rejects him again and orders him to stop calling her. But on Dahl's fourth attempt, Neil surprises him by agreeing to go out. One time. Has Dahl just worn her down? Sort of. But the truth is, Neil has a much bigger reason for finally saying yes. She's desperate to do anything she can to get over the greatest heartbreak of her life.
As Dahl and Neil start dating, this is the big obstacle in their path. Neil is still very much in love with someone else. And annoyingly for Dahl, not just anyone. The most famous, most handsome, biggest movie star in the world, Gary Cooper.
Come in.
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Chapter 4: How did Dahl's writing career impact his relationship with Neal?
Let's just forget about it,' he said." There's a lot there. Stalking, spying, assault. And then, to add insult to injury, right on its heels comes another wound. This one from another woman. A girl, actually. One morning, Neil's agent drives her to meet Cooper, who's waiting in his truck for her. Gary did not jump out as he normally did to open the door, Neil writes in her memoir.
I got in beside him. When I saw his face, my blood turned to ice. Before I could say anything, I heard someone approach. And as I looked out the window, Rocky and Maria passed into my view. Rocky is the nickname everyone calls Gary Cooper's wife. Maria is their young daughter. Maria's face is stained with tears. The child looks at me, Neil says, and spits on the ground.
Such a little girl, and she spits with so much hate. Gary explains he had told his wife about the affair. When Rocky asked him if he was in love with Neil, he admitted to her he was. Rocky then told their daughter. Which, I'm sorry, but that sucks.
I'm not defending Cooper, and I have a lot of sympathy for Rocky, but telling your young daughter that her dad is having an affair is such a lame choice. Getting spit at by this little girl really screws with Neil's head.
But I guess not enough, because it doesn't stop her from doing the exact same thing with her own daughter 25 years later when she discovers the doll has been having his own affair. It's like people run out of original ways to hurt each other. After that awful encounter, a lot of people would have ended the affair. Not Neil and Cooper. They don't even try that hard to conceal it anymore.
After hearing Cooper star in a radio play, for instance, Neil sends him a wire to tell him how fabulous he was. The next day, she gets a wire back. It reads, in all caps, I have had just about enough of you. You had better stop now or you will be sorry. Signed, Mrs. Gary Cooper. Can you imagine getting a letter like that? You will be sorry? It's like out of a bad daytime TV show.
And it takes a certain kind of personality to get that letter and just throw it in the trash and keep on trucking. But soon, things get much more complicated for Neil and Cooper.
Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Lil' Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people? I know what you're thinking.
What the hell does George Bush got to do with Lil' Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back At It podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just because of crack.
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Chapter 5: What obstacles did Dahl and Neal encounter in their marriage?
Listen to Saigon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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And I decided then that I would never, ever, ever get in that kind of situation again.
Here's Neil again with Arlene Herson.
You mean involved with a married man? And I didn't. But you also became pregnant. Now, people talk about abortion. In those days, it wasn't. It was forbidden. Nobody talked about it. Oh, it was horrifying. You know, it really was. But, you know, you didn't mention it to a soul. You had to do this horrendous thing.
In other interviews, Neil basically says Cooper forced her to have the abortion. Decades later, she says if she had only one thing to do over in her life, she would have had that baby. And you gotta wonder, if she had, would she and Dahl still have gotten together? Would he have been ready to be a stepfather to Gary Cooper's love child? I don't know.
But soon after the abortion, Neil and Cooper break it off for the last time. In Hollywood terms, Neil writes in her memoir, he was not going to pick up my option. That's literally how she phrases it. When I read that in her book, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Neil decides she needs to get the hell out of LA. So she moves to New York and meets Dahl.
But for the first many years of their relationship, they're just not alone. Cooper's presence is there too. It really screws Dahl up, which is a little surprising. Dahl always had a thing for dating women who've just broken up with, or are currently married to, famous, powerful men. Remember the French actress Annabella? She was married to movie star Tyrone Power while dating Dahl.
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Chapter 6: How did Neal's success affect their family dynamics?
She's a method actor, trained at the actor's studio under Elia Kazan, along with Newman, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean. She's also just obviously brilliant. You can tell from watching her on screen how smart she is, same way you can tell with Emma Thompson or Jodie Foster or Saoirse Ronan. Neil also has this really husky, smoky voice, which gives her characters so much gravitas.
And the way she's able to shift her voice from tough to vulnerable within the same exchange offers layers to all her characters. Like in this scene from HUD.
I was married to Ed for six years. The only thing he was ever good for was to scratch my back where I couldn't reach it.
You still got that itch?
Off and on.
So, how is Dahl going to convince Neil to forget about her dreamy ex and marry him? He's kind of hoping sex will do the trick. One of Roald Dahl's great assets, Neil writes in her memoir, was his desire never to leave a female unfulfilled. I learned that in the art of making love, Roald was a master. And believe me, at this point in my life, I was not easy to reach.
One day during their courtship, on a perfect autumn afternoon, during a stroll through midtown Manhattan, Dahl works up the courage, turns to Neil, and abruptly asks her to marry him. Her response? Oh no! Seriously, that's what she said. She opens up about the moment more in her autobiography. It's simple, I thought to myself. I really don't love Roald, and I don't want to get married.
But then, that was not entirely true. I did want marriage and a family. Roald would have beautiful children. What was I holding out for? A great love? That would never come again. When was I going to face reality? Isn't that every married person's worst fear? That their spouse might have been thinking that when they were proposed to? But the guy won't give up.
He's as persistent about this as he is about everything in his life. And the next time he asks, she acquiesces. He's worn her down. The poor guy isn't yet the writer he'll become. He can't even afford a ring for Neil. As always, Charles Marsh comes to the rescue, providing Dahl with a diamond.
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Chapter 7: What significant life events shaped Dahl's writing?
Leaving espionage and war behind, reentering the normal world, it's nearly impossible. To distract himself from his difficult domestic life, Dahl goes back to his real love, his writing. Maybe now he can finally focus. He churns out short story after short story, but still hasn't quite found his voice.
I talk about this issue with my creative writing students at Yale all the time, more than almost anything else, more than the ability to write witty dialogue or construct a sound plot or an interesting scene. The way to get hired as a writer is to show you have a distinct, compelling voice. Think about any of your favorite writers. Quentin Tarantino, Joan Didion, Aaron Sorkin, or Toni Morrison.
They all have incredibly distinct voices. You wouldn't confuse even a single page of any of those writers' works with someone else's. At this moment in his career, Dahl thinks his voice is that of a sophisticated New Yorker, someone whose stories are at home in the New Yorker magazine.
This is the world he's living in with Patricia Neal, the one where playwright Clifford Odets lives upstairs, and they go to dinner parties with Lillian Hellman and Leonard Bernstein. But this just isn't Dahl's natural voice. He hasn't found it yet. Charles Marsh does not agree. He thinks the problem with Dahl's career is the discord in his marriage.
Dahl has told Marsh that Neil is hanging out with her theater friends way too much. She isn't serving his needs enough. Marsh seems to completely understand, writing back with a line that feels ripped out of Mad Men. You want a woman to think of you 80% of the time and to work like hell on the 80% without asking you for direction.
He invites D'Alenil to Jamaica, where they can work on the marriage. Marsh brings along his newest, youngest wife yet, Claudia, who, you'll be shocked to learn, used to be his secretary. Yeah, just when you think Marsh can't be any more of a mid-century clichƩ, the guy marries his secretary. In Jamaica, Marsh gives Dahl and Neil a good talking to about finding compromise in their relationship.
Why he thinks they would respect his opinion on marriage is anybody's guess, but Dahl takes it to heart. One reason is the last advice he's ever gonna get from Marsh. On this trip to Jamaica, Marsh is bitten by a mosquito and contracts cerebral malaria, setting off a decline in health from which he'll never fully recover. For Dahl, it's like losing the only father he's ever known.
He's inconsolable, and it's the first in a long line of tragedies that will unfold over the next few years. Another obstacle for Dahl and Neil is the fact that unlike almost all marriages in this period, Neil is making way more money than her husband. It makes Dahl feel totally inadequate, which Neil does sympathize with.
So she sets out to become more like the kind of wife Dahl wants, which, sadly, is a doting, cooking, cleaning, obedient one. Take a guess how well that's going to go. After a while, Dahl does at least partially accept the reality that Neil is not his mother. She's not going to anticipate his every need. And she's just objectively way more successful than he is.
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Chapter 8: How did Dahl's personal struggles influence his creative work?
Which is the kind of thing you read in a biography and are like, oh, there's an issue there. But step back for a second. She has five kids. Five. And not that far apart in age. I don't know anyone with more than three children. Five must feel like 500. And she has a giant career. Let's give the lady a break. By all accounts, it does seem that Dahl is doing his share with the kids.
Or at least his share for a father in that era. With all the negative things Neil has to say about her husband in her memoir, and there's a lot, she really does have nice things to say about him as a father. After their rocky start, Dahl and Neil slowly settle into family life. They develop a nice routine, both continuing to work hard, relying on nannies, and totally smitten with their kids.
Neil, despite her body in a constant state of creation and recovery, works a ton, making her three greatest movies, in fact. Life is good. They've settled into a rhythm. But the biggest tragedy of Dahl's life is about to occur, followed by another, followed by one more, all involving the brain. And it's followed by an epic amount of career success.
It's the stuff of TV melodrama, which it's actually about to become. Dahl has been tested many times over the years, but this next period of his life is going to be way more intense than anything. It also may be what turns him into the writer he was always meant to be. The Secret World of Roald Dahl is produced by Imagine Audio and Parallax Studios for iHeart Podcasts.
Created and written by me, Aaron Tracy. Produced by Matt Schrader. Post-production by Windhill Studios. With editing, scoring, and sound design by Mark Henry Phillips. Editing by Ryan Seaton. Music by APM. Executive Producers Nathan Clokey, Cara Welker, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and Aaron Tracy. Additional voice performances and recreation by Mark Henry Phillips and Eleven Labs.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and review The Secret World of Roald Dahl on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Copyright 2026. Imagine Entertainment, iHeartMedia, and Parallax.
On the Look Back At It podcast. 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year.
I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to Look Back At It on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dick and Paul show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand.
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