Patricia Neal, born in Packard, Ky., on January 20, 1926, made her film debut in Warner Bros.' John Loves Mary (1949) in a role she had narrowly missed playing on the Broadway stage. Producer Richard Rodgers had offered Neal the lead in Norman Krasna's 1946 stage comedy about a misunderstanding that almost causes a breakup between a soldier stationed in England and his fiancée back home. The night before she was to have signed a contract with Rodgers, Neal got an even better offer - the role of the young Regina Giddens in the original Broadway production of Another Part of the Forest, Lillian Hellman's "prequel" to The Little Foxes. That role provided a triumph for Neal, winning her the prize as "Best Featured Actress" at the first Tony Awards ceremony in 1947.

Neal recalled in her 1988 biography As I Am that her stage success led Hollywood to come calling: "Goldwyn wanted me. Selznick wanted me. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and 20th Century-Fox and Paramount wanted me...Warner Brothers wanted me, too, and they offered an added incentive: the lead in their newly acquired Broadway hit, John Loves Mary. I was thrilled. I was going to have my cake and eat it, too." Krasna's script had been adapted for the screen by Phoebe and Henry Ephron, parents of screenwriter/director Nora Ephron. At a Hollywood party before filming began, a "very robust and handsome man" took Neal's hand and introduced himself as her leading man. His name was Ronald Reagan. Neal, who would act with him again in The Hasty Heart (1949), would later make disparaging remarks about Reagan's politics but also acknowledged that he was "a very good film actor" who "knew his business."

Neal recalled the magic of her first day of filming: "The main set of John Loves Mary was surrounded by a forest of lights, reflectors, crane-like sound booms and recording equipment. Wires and cables laced the floor like huge octopus tentacles that trailed high up into the rafters, connecting the whole stage to some secret energy source in the sky." Once the film was completed, Warners delayed its release so that Neal's second film, The Fountainhead (also 1949), a turbulent drama co-starring her real-life lover Gary Cooper, became the vehicle that introduced her to movie audiences.

Director: David Butler
Producer: Jerry Wald
Screenplay: Henry Ephron, Phoebe Ephron, from play by Norman Krasna
Art Direction: Robert M. Haas
Cinematography: J. Peverell Marley
Costume Design: Milo Anderson
Editing: Irene Morra
Original Music: David Buttolph
Cast: Ronald Reagan (John Lawrence), Patricia Neal (Mary McKinley), Jack Carson (Fred Taylor), Wayne Morris (Lt. Victor O'Leary), Edward Arnold (Senator James McKinley), Virginia Field (Lilly Herbish), Katharine Alexander (Phyllis McKinley).
BW-97m.

by Roger Fristoe