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Anna Marie Duke was born to Francis and John Duke on a cold December day, in 1946 in Bellvue Hospital, thus being the youngest of three children.
In, 1952, when Anna was six, her alcoholic father walked out and never returned to his wife, his son, Raymond, nor his two daughters, Carol and Anna Marie. The emotionally unstable Francis was left to care for these children by doing several odd jobs.
Finally, Ray started to show some interset in acting, and was soon "discovered" by Managers, John and Ethel Ross who saw talent in the young boy. Before long, little Anna showed some interest in acting and soon began doing commercials and small roles on live television programs. Not before long, the Rosses had discovered that they had "found" a "gem" who they they could make a full flegded star! Pretty soon, Anna was getting more and more small parts and doing steady work to help support the Duke family. Around this time, the Rosses decided to professionally change Anna's name to "Patty". "Anna Marie is dead. You're Patty now" Years later, this would become terribly traumatic to Patty Duke.
Finally in 1959, after three major film roles in such films as "The Goddess" with Kim Stanley and Llyod Bridges and "Happy Anniversary" with David Niven and Mitzi Gaynor, she won the part of deaf and blind, Helen Keller, in the new Broadway play, "The Miracle Worker" Her performence won her critical raves and soon her name was put above the title along with Anne Bancroft's thus become the youngest star ever on Broadway up until that time, at the age of 12.
After two years, "The Miracle Worker" was so successful, it was made into a movie, directed by the famed, Arthur Penn and starring Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, all three recreating their Broadway duties for the film.
In 1963, "The Miracle Worker" which had been an enormous criticial success, was nominated for 5 Oscars, one for Arthur Penn, one for screenplay, another for costume design and acting honers for Anne Bancroft and 16 year old, Patty Duke.
Anna was very excited about the fact that she was going to the Academy Awards, but Ethel saw to it that her mother did not attend, with a dog taking her place!
Patty Duke won the Oscar that year, becoming the youngest person in history to do so.
This success was soon followed by "The Patty Duke Show" where she became the youngest person in history to have a series bearing her own name and she was to play identical cousins, "Patty" and "Cathy" who both looked alike but had very different interests. At the tender age of 16, Patty Duke had conquered Broadway, films and television, something that is proably still not repeated to this day, over thirty years later!
In 1964, Patty Duke earned her first Emmy Award nomination for Best Actress for her work in the series, however she lost to Mary Tyler Moore for "The Dick Van Dyke Show".
In 1965, came her next triumph, where she was too play the role of tomboy "Billie" in "Billie". The film was a huge success and was one of the first movies to be sold to network television.
By this time, behind the scenes tensions with the Rosses "exploded". In her years with the Rosses she had endured sexual abuse, alcohol and physical abuse and finally she was fed up with them. The Rosses moving her show from NY to LA in it's third season becasue of her being romantically involved with the assistand director on the show, Harry Falk, triggered the separation with the Rosses. So, Anna immediatly married Harry, while continuing with her show at the same time. When the series was cancelled in 1966, newlywed, Patty sunk into a deep depression, ultimately attempting suicide on numerous occassions.
Soon came which seemed to be "the role of a lifetime" when she was picked out of thousands to be "Neely O'Hara" a severly trubled actress-singer from the recent blockbuster book, "Valley of the Dolls" who was modeled after Judy Garland. Patty Duke was about to experience her first professional disaster.
Although, "Valley of the Dolls" was a huge financial success, breaking records to be 20th Century Fox's highest-grossing movie up until that time, it was however not a critical success. Her performence was especially pointed out as being awful. Soon was followed by another deep depression. She barely worked or got out of bed for the next year and a half.
In 1969, she was offered the part of a homely young woman looking at life with a sarcastic attitude in the independent film, "Me, Natalie" The film was a box-office flop, but Patty did get critcally -acclamied reviews and recieved her second Golden Globe Award (the first being for "The Miracle Worker"). However, at this time her manic mood swings and suicidal depressions attributed to the end of her marriage to Harry. The marriage lasted four years.
Later in 1969 Patty took the role of a young pregnant Southern girl who was on the run, who meets a young black lawyer from New York who was also on the run and wound up sharinga house together. This was Patty's First TV-movie and the ratings were so successful it was later released theatricaly. The success of the film also helped it earn 5 Emmy nominations, with it winning two, one for writing and the other for Patty as Best Actress. However, her acceptance speech was not so triumphant. She grabbed the stauette without looking at the the presenter and uttered some incoherrent words. The Country thought that she was on drugs, but in reality she was continuing to suffer from a mentel illness she didn't know she had, only this time instead of her actions being seen in private, they were seen infront of a national audience.
Around this time, Patty also become romantically linked to Desi Arnaz, JR who was the son of Lucille Ball. 24 year old Patty was dating a 17 year old and thid duo caused a media frenzy and soon an angry Lucille Ball ended the relationship.
Almost Immeadatly after, she met Michael Tell who had subletted her apartment. She married him because she was pregnant and within hours of meeting, they flew to Las Vegas and were married. The Marriage lasted 13 days.
Patty began secretly seeing John Astin of "The Addams Family" fame who was at the time separated from his wife. Soon they conceived a child out of wedlock, who Patty decided to would name Sean Duke and would raise him on her own. Soon the whole media was saying that the child was Desi's but the time of conception didn't fit.
In 1973, Patty finally married John Astin and she would adopt his 3 boys and she would soon give birth to another child, Mackenzie.
Patty Duke's career now consisted of guest-starring in many popular series' and being the new "Queen of The TV Movies", which is a title she holds to this day, making acting in more than anyone ever has. But by this time her theatrical film career was at a standstill, mainly because of the "Valley of the Dolls" fiasco in 1967.
Her and John started touring the country with numerous stage plays and continues to star in television films. In 1976, Patty Duke won her second Emmy award for the highly successful mini-series, "Captains and the Kings" in which she played a woman whose charector ages from age 16 to 80 and was modeled after Rose Kennedy. Soon other highly-sucessful TV films, such as "Killer on Board", "Fire!" and "Curse of the Black Widow" followed.
In 1978, she recieved two Emmy nods for her work in the TV movies, "Having Babies 3" as a pregnant woman with cancer who must decide on the fate of her unborn child and "A Family Upside Down" with Fred Astaire and Helen Hayes where she played a daughter who was desperatly seeking affection from her elderly father.
More TV movies followed such as "Before and After", "Hanging By a Thread" and "The Women in White". But in 1979 she has the chance of a lifetime in yet again, "The Miracle Worker" where she would now play Annie Sullivan to Mellisa Gilbert's Helen Keller. It won her her third Emmy Award.
1980 was another big year, she starred in three very successful movies, "Mom, the Wolfman and Me", "The Babysitter" and earned yet another Emmy nomination for her performence of an emotioatanlly unstable woman in "The Women's Room".
However at this time her own life was much like her role in "The Women's Room"
Her mood swings were increasingly out of control and her depressions last months and months at a time. She had been like this since the later days of "The Patty Duke Show" when she was in her late teens.
In 1981, for the first (and so far last) time she apeeared topless on film, as a lesbian fashion designer who is yearning to have a baby in the dismal, "By Design". She also co-starred with her son, Sean Astin, in a criticly acclaimed After School Special, "Please Don't Hit Me, Mom" where she played the child-abusing mother of Sean.
In 1982, with her marriage to John Astin now approaching it's death largely because of her mental situation. She was now separated from John and working on the tv series "It Takes Two" with Richard Crenna and the soon-to-be stars, Helen Hunt and Anthony Edwards played her children. It was during the serie's one year run that she was FINALLY diagnosed with Manic-Depression, a serious mentel illness, which had gone untreated since the mid 1960's. Anna says she never heard two better words than "Manic-Depressive". All the pain and suffering she had caused for bother other people and herslelf now had a name, and better yet a cure! The cure is Lithium which is a metallic element that controls the highs and lows of the brain. Anna could now control her life and live a "normal" life.
In 1985, while filming a TV movie called "A Time To Triumph" in which she played a woman who enrolls in the army to help support her family, she met Sgt. Michael Pearce who was her technical drill instructor on the film. The two met and fell in love and were married in November of 1985.
In 1987, while in the beginning of her fourth decade, she wrote her memiors in a book titles, "Call Me Anna" in which was the first time she publicly revealed she had a mental illness. The book was an immediate New York Times Bestseller and 10 years later is still in print.
She continued with being a largely successful television actress in "George Washington" in 1984, where she played Martha and earned her eighth Emmy nod And in another tv series "Hail To the Chief" (It Takes Two folded in 1983, after only a year on the air, despite Patty winning a People's Choice Award for Faorite Comedic Actress). In "Hail" she played the First US female president, but it was cancelled after only 7 episodes.
That same year she became a president for real , when she was elected as the second woman President in history of The Screen Actors Guild (SAG), which is the fifth largest union in the US. She served her first term, and resinged into her second term in 1988.
In 1989, Anna and Mike adopted a baby, who they called Kevin, and her career was still doing great in TV (despite another failed series, "Karen's Song" in 1987.)
In 1990, "Call Me Anna" was made into a tv movie where she would play herself from her early her early 30's to the present time.
IN 1992, she appeared in three largely successful tv movies, as well as a theatrical movie and wrote her second best-selling book, "A Brilliant Madness:Living with Manic-Depression Illness".
Today, she is 50 years old and still going strong, she has had many recent tv-ratings hits such as "Harvest Of Fire" in 1996 which was the second-highest rated tv movie of the year. Despite yet another failed series in 1995 ("Amazing Grace"), she has had a flawless reputation in television in the past few years with one ratings success after the other, she has proven to be one of the few child stars, who has managed a successful acting carrer in adulthood.
"I've beaten my own bad system, and on some days, most days, that feels like a miracle" said Anna in the last verse of her first book. Well maybe the "Miracle Worker" really is Patty Duke.
Copyright 1997, by Bill Jankowski