Academy Award for Best Actress 1963 Hud Patricia Neal (January 20, 1926 – August 8, 2010) was an American actress of stage and screen. She was best known for her roles as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and middle-aged housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud (1963), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress..