Actors - Patty Duke

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	Actors - Patty Duke

Patty Duke (born December 14, 1946) is an 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 Academy Award 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 the first on screen role of actor Al Pacino.

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.

Childhood

Many attribute some of Duke's extraordinary abilities to her being affected by bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression. Duke's personal life from an almost 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 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: they consistently billed Duke as two years younger than she was, and padded her resume with some false credits. Ethel Ross gave the sweeping name-change order "Anna Marie is dead, you are Patty now," which, though perhaps innocently intended, resounded painfully with Anna for 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. However, 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 version, for which Duke received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; she was the youngest person to receive an Academy Award at age 16, ignoring Shirley Temple's special Award.

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 twelve, Patty Duke appeared on The $64,000 Question game show and won $32,000. Three years later, it was revealed that the game show was rigged and Patty was called to testify before a congessional panel. Patty 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 her managers 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. The Rosses also began providing Duke with alcohol and prescription drugs starting when she was as young as 13, which led to substance abuse problems later. At the same time, efforts were taken to portray her as a normal teenager; publicity shots of Duke in her room showed a telephone which 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.

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 the money was nothing compared to what they had done to her life). Furthermore, she was 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 the man into an affair that ended the marriage after four years. It was during the marriage to Falk that she made Valley of the Dolls
, a critical disaster that raised questions as to her ability as an adult actress.

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Actors - Patty Duke

Childhood

Mid-Career

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