NASHVILLE, Tenn. At 82, Patricia Neal still has that delightful voice -- husky yet elegant -- as she recalls favorite films of her career.

"'A Face in the Crowd,'" she says of the 1957 movie in which she starred opposite Andy Griffith. "Elia Kazan directed. I loved that one. . . . Andy Griffith was gorgeous.

"I also loved 'Hud' [with Paul Newman in 1963] because it won me the Oscar. And 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' [the 1951 science fiction classic]. I thought it was hysterical when I made it, but they loved it."

Neal, who was born in Packard, Ky., and grew up in Knoxville, Tenn., returned to Tennessee to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Nashville Film Festival this week. She lives in New York now.

Neal studied drama at Northwestern University in Illinois. "I went on from there to New York, and I got a job almost at once," she said.

From Broadway she headed to Hollywood, where her first films included a memorable role opposite Gary Cooper in "The Fountainhead" in 1949.

She returned to Broadway for "A Roomful of Roses" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" before opening a second and more successful chapter of her film career with "A Face in the Crowd."

Neal is candid about her past, including her affair with Cooper, her strokes in the 1960s (she relearned to walk and talk) and her leading men (her favorite was Cooper).