Patty Duke

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Patty Duke (born December 14, 1946) is an Academy Award-winning actress of the stage and screen. Born Anna Marie Duke in Elmhurst, Queens, New York, USA to an Irish American father, John P. Duke, and an Irish-German mother, Frances McMahon. She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1962 at the age of 15 for her role as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker.

She also won a Golden Globe for Me, Natalie in 1969, which also featured Al Pacino in his onscreen debut.

From 1972 to 1985, she was married to John Astin, the father of her actor children, Sean Astin and Mackenzie Astin (the former being conceived before her marriage to Astin, and who was subsequently adopted by Astin). In 1986 she married Michael Pearce and moved to Idaho.

1 Childhood
2 Mid-Career
3 2000s
4 Filmography
5 External links
6 References

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Childhood

Duke experienced what seemed to be an almost Dickensian childhood. Her father was an alcoholic. Her mother suffered from unipolar disorder and was prone to violence. When Duke was 6, her mother threw her father out. When she was 8, her life was essentially turned over to her managers, John and Ethel Ross, who recognized her talent and promoted her as a child actress.

The Rosses' methods were somewhat unscrupulous. For instance, they consistently billed Duke as two years younger than she was, and padded her resume with some false credits.

It was Ethel Ross who gave the sweeping name-change order, "Anna Marie is dead, you are Patty now," though perhaps innocently intended, resounded painfully for Duke in the decades to come. (Her professional name was chosen because the Rosses wanted her to achieve the success of Patty McCormack).

One of Duke's first acting jobs was on the soap opera The Brighter Day, in the late 1950s. Duke's first major role was playing Helen Keller (with Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan) in the Broadway play The Miracle Worker, which ran for nearly two years. Midway through the run, she was honored by having her name placed above the title on the marquee. The play was made into the 1962 film, for which Duke received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Duke was the youngest person at that time to receive an Academy Award (age 16).

While Shirley Temple was much younger when she received her Academy Award, it was an honorary Award for her work in motion pictures as the reigning 'juvenile actress' of her day rather than for any one role. Judy Garland would receive a similar honorary Award for her work in The Wizard of Oz as a 'juvenile actress.'

In 1963, Duke landed her own series The Patty Duke Show, in which she played both the main characters: Patty Lane and her "identical cousin" Cathy Lane. The show lasted for three seasons, and earned her one Emmy Award nomination.

At the age of 12, Patty Duke appeared on The $64,000 Question and won $32,000. Three years later, it was revealed that the game show was rigged and she was called to testify before a congessional panel. She was coached by the Rosses to claim that she had not cheated. At first she went along with the Rosses' story and lied to the panel. Later she broke down into tears and admitted that she had been given the answers.

Despite the success of her career, Duke was deeply unhappy during her teenage years. She reports being treated as a virtual prisoner by the Rosses and had little control over her own life and her own earnings. The Rosses kept control over Duke and her mother by allowing them only a pittance to survive on. The Rosses also began providing Duke with alcohol and prescription drugs when she was 13, which led to substance abuse problems later.

At the same time, efforts were taken to portray her as a normal teenager. There were publicity shots of Duke in her room that showed a telephone, which, unknown to the public, was not even connected. The phone was later connected when she befriended Frank Sinatra, Jr.

As an adult, Duke accused both John and Ethel Ross of sexual abuse.

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Mid-Career

Upon turning 18, Duke became free of the Rosses, only to find that they had squandered most of her earnings (although she has stated that losing the money was nothing compared to what they had done to her life). She was also not socially or emotionally prepared to live on her own.

At the age of 18 she married director Harry Falk who was nearly twice her age at the time. Duke's heavy drinking and drug abuse, coupled with suicide attempts and anorexia, drove Falk into an affair that ended the marriage after four years. It was during her marriage to Falk that she made Valley of the Dolls, a film that was a critical disaster that raised questions as to her ability as an adult actress.

Duke was able to start a successful singing career producing Top 40 hits such as "Don't Just Stand There" in 1965, and "Dona Dona" in 1968. She performed both songs on The Ed Sullivan Show.

However, it was in the 1970 TV movie My Sweet Charlie, for which she won her first Emmy, where Duke made her comeback as an actress.

Around this time she became romantically involved with actor John Astin. She also entered into a short-lived but highly publicized affair with Desi Arnaz, Jr.. The relationship did not last, partially because Arnaz's mother, TV legend Lucille Ball, did not approve of the relationship and reportedly ordered her son to stop seeing Duke.

In what likely may have been a depressive episode, Duke quickly married rock promoter Michael Tell, whom she had literally just met. The marriage was annulled two weeks later.

After her marriage to Michael Tell, Duke discovered she was pregnant with her first child. Much of the public assumed that the father was Arnaz, due to the media hype of the affair. The assumption was made that Duke was carrying the illegitimate grandchild of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. This would leave very bad feelings on Ball's part towards Duke.

However, Duke herself believed she was carrying Astin's child.

On February 21, 1971, she gave birth to her first son Sean Astin (who has since become a major actor in his own right). Sean was actually Michael Tell's biological son. Even though the affair with Desi Jr. had long since ended, Desi Arnaz, Sr. made a kindly visit to Duke when she was in the hospital. This was a daring thing for him to do, as there were reporters outside the hospital that were eager for news that the newborn was his grandson.

In 1972, the quite older actor John Astin married Duke, adopted her son, and fathered her second son, actor Mackenzie Astin, who was born in 1973.

Duke and Astin worked together extensively during their marriage. For a time, Patty Duke even added Astin to her professional name. The marriage and her children greatly improved her self confidence and her career. She received her second Emmy for the TV mini-series Captains and the Kings and her third for a TV version of The Miracle Worker in which she played Annie Sullivan to Melissa Gilbert's Helen Keller.

Duke still suffered from depression, however. It and the work put a strain on her marriage. She and Astin divorced in 1985.

In 1986 Duke married present husband, drill seargent Michael Pearce. They have one son together.

In 1982 an unusual reaction to a cortisone shot she received on a set led to her being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Its treatment, which included lithium as a medication, put her on the true road to recovery. Duke has since become an activist for numerous causes, including an important spokesperson for mental health.

Many have attributed some of Duke's extraordinary abilities to her being affected by bipolar disorder.

In 1985 she was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild, the second woman to hold the position (Duke held the job until 1988).

She has written her autobiography Call Me Anna (ISBN 0553272055) and Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depressive Illness (ISBN 0553560727)

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2000s

In 2002 she returned to New York to appear as "Aunt Eller" in a revival of Oklahoma.

On November 2, 2004, it was announced that Duke would undergo single bypass surgery in her adoptive home state of Idaho, which was very successful.

In 2005, she returned again to New York to attend a memorial service for actress and old co-star from The Miracle Worker, Anne Bancroft, who had died of cancer earlier in the year.

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