Tough Dame #1: Patricia Neal

In my long tenure as Geerlings & Wade's wine director (years before we became part of Winetasting.com), I was occasionally summoned to the telephone to help a member of the call center answer a difficult wine question or speak with a customer who specifically asked for me by name. That's how I first spoke with Patricia Neal.

She wanted my personal opinion, rather than our in-print descriptions on some wines she was considering. She needed wine for a function and more serious, less commercial, food-friendly values with some cellar potential for her admittedly modest personal use.

The wines that day pleased her; she used our own Hamilton Estates Merlot and Glass Ridge Vintner's Select Chardonnay for whatever that function was, and a price-sensitive Chateauneuf du Pape alternative that I liked better than the others, plus the same criteria on an Alsatian white ... food and wine savvy questions.

Since then, a few times per year I would get called to the phone because Ms. Neal wanted to talk with me. She always contacted me via the call center rather than my direct line – and made sure that the person who received her call and fetched me got the credit for her order.

I admit it, I was smitten. No way was I ever going to miss a call from that husky voice, copied by Kathleen Turner and umpteen others. She was the Mother in The Day the Earth Stood Still! Even after multiple strokes, learning to speak all over again and at an advanced age, she still possessed that wonderful instrument.

She always remembered what we had chatted about during the previous call and routinely inquired as to the (often precarious) health of my parents, in addition to doing our business. Being on the telephone with Ms. Neal was like talking to a mega-cool aunt who just happened to be my personal link to the tail end of the golden era of Hollywood, through to the breakdown of the studio system.

I only had the chutzpah one time to ask her about her career, about working with Kazan, who named names, on A Face in the Crowd. Then I told her how, as an impressionable lad, the scene with her dragging Andy Griffith into her hotel room by his collar was the most provocative thing my young eyes had seen. Instead of obtaining the obvious restraining order, she thanked me for knowing the film.

Patricia Neal died Sunday.

Though she compared portions of her life to Greek tragedy, she was a fighter. She suffered a nervous breakdown, nearly lost her infant son in a taxi accident, lost her daughter to measles in 1962 and suffered a series of strokes in 1965. The Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center in Knoxville still helps patients recover from strokes, spinal cord and brain injuries.

The Fountainhead, The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Face in the Crowd, Hud -- her 1963 Oscar-winning role opposite Melvyn Douglas and Paul Newman -- all are worth the price of admission. After her strokes, she made it back to the screen in 1968, earning an Academy Award nomination for her performance in The Subject Was Roses. She also starred on Broadway and earned three Emmy nominations.

The next "old movie night" we host at our home -- we do this regularly with a small group of classic film fans -- will include The Day the Earth Stood Still, and with the meal, we'll serve two wines that she would have bought for herself . Food-friendly, they over-deliver and will improve in the bottle: the 2008 Louis Reffelingen (ALS123, $19.99, in stock soon), a Riesling from Alsace, and the 2006 Camp des Garrigues, Vacqueyras, from the Southern Rhone (RHO164, $24.99).

I could never bring myself to call her anything less formal than Ms. Neal. Knowing her paramours included Dashiell Hammett and Gary Cooper was intimidating enough.

She was my favorite "old G&W" customer. It was an honor to serve her.