Patty Duke
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Patty Duke on the 1965 album Don't Just Stand There |
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.
Duke experienced what could be termed a Dickensian childhood. Her father was an
alcoholic, and 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 mother essentially turned Duke's care 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." This would have painful repercussions for Duke in the decades to come. (Her professional name was chosen because the Rosses wanted her to achieve the success of
Patty McCormack).
Early career
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 subsequently made into a
1962 film, for which Duke received the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Although
Shirley Temple and
Judy Garland had both won "juvenile" Oscars for general achievement, Duke was the youngest person at that time to receive an
Academy Award for a specific role. She also won a
Golden Globe for
Me, Natalie in
1969, which also featured
Al Pacino in his onscreen debut.
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 ran 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. Efforts were taken to portray her as a normal teenager, but Duke has indicated in her memoirs that she was a virtual prisoner of 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. (As an adult, Duke accused both John and Ethel Ross of
sexual abuse.)
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.
Transition to adulthood
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 did start a successful singing career, garnering several 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 manic 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. 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, actor
John Astin married Duke, adopted her son (
Sean Astin, now a noted actor) and fathered her second son,
Mackenzie Astin, who was born in
1973. Duke and Astin worked together extensively during their marriage. For a time, Patty Duke 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.
In
1985, Duke and Astin divorced, and in
1986 she married drill seargent Michael Pearce and moved to
Idaho. They have one son together.
Illness
Duke has suffered from mental health issues throughout her life. 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, stabilized Duke's life put her on the true road to recovery.
Many have attributed some of Duke's early, extraordinary acting abilities to her being affected by
bipolar disorder.
Duke has since become an activist for numerous mental health causes.
2000s
Duke's recent appearances have been limited; she has mainly appeared in television movies in the last decade. She has made her permanent home in
Idaho, and is not involved in day-to-day activities in Hollywood.
On
November 2,
2004, it was announced that Duke would undergo single
bypass surgery in her adoptive home state of
Idaho, which was successful.
In 2002 she returned to New York to appear as "Aunt Eller" in a revival of
Oklahoma. She also returned to New York in 2005 to attend a memorial service for actress and old co-star from
The Miracle Worker,
Anne Bancroft, who had died of
uterine cancer earlier in the year.
Other achievements
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 also wrote
Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depressive Illness (ISBN 0553560727)
Country Music Holiday (
1958)
The Goddess (
1958)
4D Man (
1959)
The Miracle Worker (
1962)
The Patty Duke Show (1963)
*Billie (1965)
*The Daydreamer (1966) (voice)
*Think Twentieth (1967) (short subject)
*Valley of the Dolls (1967)
*Me, Natalie (1969)
*My Sweet Charlie (1970)
*You'll Like My Mother (1972)
*The Swarm (1978)
*By Design (1982)
*Willy/Milly (1986)
*The Hitch-Hikers (1989)
*Prelude to a Kiss (1992)
*Kimberly (1999)
*Wrong Turn (2003) (short subject)
*Bigger Than the Sky'' (
2005)
*
*
Patty Duke's Official Website*
When Young Stars Burn Out MSN Movies
*
InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse: Patty Duke (TV Interview)
* Duke, Patty.
Call me Anna Bantam, 1998. (ISBN 0553272055)
