Patty Duke Is 61 Today

Patty Duke was born Anna Marie Duke in Elmhurst, Queens, New York to an Irish American father, John P. Duke, and an Irish-German mother, Frances McMahon. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother suffered from clinical depression and was prone to periods of prolonged depression. 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 another child actress, Patty McCormack, who found success in movies like The Bad Seed.

One of Duke’s first acting jobs was on the soap opera The Brighter Day, in the late 1950s. She also appeared in print ads and in television commercials.

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. At 16, Duke was the youngest person at that time to receive an Academy Award in a competitive category. She is also one of only three actresses to win an Oscar for a non-speaking role, she had to convey Helen’s feelings through physical actions and a few cursory grunts; Except at the breakthrough moment, when she recognizes water on her hand and exclaims Wah! Wah! While other other actresses have portrayed Keller, most film historians agree that Patty Duke’s is the definitive portrayal.

The final scene from The Miracle Worker

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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.
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 neither socially nor emotionally prepared to live on her own.
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.

At the age of 18, Duke married director Harry Falk who was 31 years old at the time. Duke’s heavy drinking and drug abuse, coupled with suicide attempts and anorexia, stressed the marriage. The union was over within four years. She starred as Neely O’hara in the cult classic Valley of the Dolls . In 1969, Duke won a Golden Globe for Me, Natalie, which also featured Al Pacino in his onscreen debut. Duke followed that with another Emmy for her work in Valley of the Dolls (Special Edition).
Around 1970, Duke 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 child of Desi Arnaz, Jr.. This would leave very bad feelings on Ball’s part towards Duke.
However, Duke herself believed she was carrying Astin’s child. On February 25, 1971, she gave birth to her first son Sean. Sean was actually Michael Tell’s biological son, a fact not revealed until the advent of DNA testing some decades later; Duke had claimed in her autobiography that her marriage with Tell was never consummated. 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 and fathered her second son, Mackenzie, 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 third Emmy for the TV miniseries, Captains and the Kings, and her fourth for a TV version of The Miracle Worker in which she played Annie Sullivan to Melissa Gilbert’s Helen Keller. During this time, Patty also made regular appearances on popular game shows.

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In 1985, Duke and Astin divorced, and in 1986 she married Drill sergeant Michael Pearce, whom she met on the set of a TV movie, A Time to Triumph. The couple moved to Idaho and adopted a son, Kevin Pearce.
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 and put her on the road to recovery. In 1985, Duke was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild, the second woman to hold the position (Duke held the job until 1988).
On Friday, December 14, 2007, Ms. Duke will be awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of North Florida for her work in advancing awareness of mental health issues. She is currently working on the tele-film The Four Children of Tander Welch.