| Patty Duke | ||||||||||||||
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 Patty Duke on the 1965 album Don't Just Stand There |
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| Birth name | Anna Marie Duke | |||||||||||||
| Born | December 14 1946 Elmhurst, Queens, New York |
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| Spouse(s) | Harry Falk (1965-1969) Michael Tell (1970-1970) John Astin (1972-1985) Michael Pearce (1986-) |
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Patty Duke (born December 14, 1946) is an Academy Award-winning American actress of the stage and screen.
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Childhood
Duke was born Anna Marie Duke in Elmhurst, Queens, New York[1] 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 clinical depression 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).
Career
Early career
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. 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 congressional 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. 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, her name was 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, since Duke had no dialog other than grunts and screams in the film. She won a Golden Globe for Me, Natalie in 1969, which also featured Al Pacino in his screen debut. In 1979 in a television movie of "The Miracle Worker", Duke played Sullivan. 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.
Transition to adulthood
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. Falk eventually began 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. However, to this day, according to Duke, she still hears from people who loved her character of Neely O'Hara. Duke had 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 Award, where Duke made her comeback as an actress.
Personal life
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. 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[who?] assumed that the father was Arnaz, due to the media hype of the affair. 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 hence. 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, despite 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 second Emmy for the TV miniseries, 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 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 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 and put her on the road to recovery. Duke has since become an activist for numerous mental health causes.
2000s
Duke curtailed her appearances after her recovery. She mainly appeared in television movies in the last decade. She made her permanent home in Idaho, and is not involved in day-to-day activities in Hollywood. In 2002, Duke 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. On November 2, 2004, it was announced that Duke would undergo single bypass surgery in Idaho, which was successful. On October 4, 2007, Duke appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, talking about her bipolar disorder to an Oprah guest, advising the guest to seek out a support group.
Other achievements
In 1985, Duke was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild, the second woman to hold the position (Duke held the job until 1988). Coincidentally, in the same year she also played the first female President of the United States in the sitcom Hail to the Chief. She authored two books, one her autobiography, Call Me Anna (ISBN 0-553-27205-5), and Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depressive Illness (ISBN 0-553-56072-7) In December, 2007, Duke was awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of North Florida for her work in advancing awareness of mental health issues.[2]
Selected filmography
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| Preceded by Rita Moreno for West Side Story |
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress 1962 for The Miracle Worker |
Succeeded by Margaret Rutherford for The V.I.P.s |
| Preceded by Edward Asner |
President of Screen Actors Guild 1985 – 1988 |
Succeeded by Barry Gordon |
References
- ^ IMDb entry for Patty Duke
- ^ Duke Awarded Honorary Degree/Senior Recognized for Service. Press Release For: December 06, 2007. University of North Florida.
Bibliography
- Duke, Patty. Call me Anna Bantam, 1998. (ISBN 0-553-27205-5)
