Patty Duke 1946-2016
Oscar-winning actress and 1960s pop icon Anna "Patty Duke" Pearce died at the age of 69 on March 29, 2016. The actress was well known for her 1963 Best Supporting Actress Oscar performance in "The Miracle Worker" and the TV series "The Patty Duke Show." She was also a strong advocate for mental health, having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Patty Duke
Patty Duke was born in Elmhurst, Queens in New York City on Dec. 14, 1946. She had a difficult childhood with abusive parents. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother suffered from clinical depression.
By eight-years-old she was largely under the control of husband-and-wife talent managers, John and Ethel Ross, who soon found her work on soap operas and print advertising. She also appeared on "The $64,000 Question" at 12-years-old, winning $32,000. The couple changed the actresses' name to Patty Duke.
Child actress Patty Duke roller skates in Central Park in New York City, April 6, 1961.
Patty Duke - "The Miracle Worker"
She first became famous as a child star. Duke was cast in the role of Helen Keller in the "Miracle Worker" in 1959 on Broadway from 1959-1961. She reprised the role in the 1962 film version for which she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the age of 16 -- then the youngest winner ever.
Here, Anne Bancroft, left, and Patty Duke are shown in character on stage in the Broadway play "The Miracle Worker" in New York City, Oct. 1959. Bancroft plays the role of Anne Sullivan, who teaches the blind and deaf Helen Keller, played by Duke, to communicate.
Patty Duke - Best Supporting Actress
Patty Duke is shown here at 16 after receiving her Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1963 for "The Miracle Worker." At left is Gregory Peck and to the right are Joan Crawford and Ed Begley.
There was a family history of manic-depression (bipolar disorder). Duke's talent managers supplied her with alcohol and prescription drugs, which accelerated the effects of her undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Duke described the couple in her auto-biography, "Call Me," as having squandered most of her earnings and also accused them of of sexual abuse.
Patty Duke
After her Oscar win, Patty Duke went on to star in the TV sitcom "The Patty Duke Show" for three seasons, becoming a pop culture icon.
The Patty Duke Show
"The Patty Duke Show" Duke played identical cousins living in Brooklyn Heights, New York, in "The Patty Duke Show." The role won the actress an Emmy nomination.
She was listed as no. 40 on TV Guide's list of 50 greatest tv stars of all time.
Patty Duke & Frankie Avalon
Patty Duke meets Singer/Actor Frankie Avalon in this scene from "Foggy Day" June 3, 1965 for episode of ABC-TV's "The Patty Duke Show." Avalon plays himself in the episode. He gets lost, stops for directions at Patty's house, and she sends him on his way but not the right way.
Patty Duke & Harry Falk
Patty Duke married her first husband Harry Falk, who was 13 years older, in 1965 when she was 18-years-old. The couple divorced in 1970.
She had relationships with Desi Arnaz Jr., John Astin and rock promoter Michael Tell around the same time. She married Tell on June 26, 1970, after learning she was pregnant, though the paternity of her child was unclear. It was a marriage that lasted just 13 days. Her son, Sean Astin, was born Feb. 25, 1917. DNA testing in 1994 proved that Sean Astin was Tell's son.
Duke's third husband became John Astin and together they had a son named Mackenzie. For a time the actress was known as Patty Duke Astin.
Her fourth and final marriage was to drill sergeant Michael Pearce in 1986. Pearce had served as a consultant to a film Duke worked on, "A Time to Triumph."
Eighteen-year-old Patty Duke poses with her fiance, television director Harry G. Falk, 32, Oct. 1965.
"Valley of the Dolls"
With the end of "The Patty Duke Show" in 1966, which left her stereotyped as not one, but two squeaky-clean teenagers, Duke attempted to leap into adulthood in the 1967 melodrama "Valley of the Dolls," in which she played a showbiz hopeful who falls prey to drug addiction, a broken marriage and shattered dreams.
The film, based on the best-selling Jacqueline Susann pulp novel, was critically slammed but a commercial smash. With her roles in the film "Billie," which was the first movie sold to network tv, and Neely O'Hara in the 1967 cult classic "Valley of the Dolls," Duke became known as the "Queen of TV Movies."
Duke won three Emmys -- the first for "My Sweet Charlie" in 1970, the second for the mini-series "Captains and Kings" in 1977 and the third for the 1980 remake of "The Miracle Worker" in 1980. In the remake of "The Miracle Worker" Duke played Anne Sullivan instead of Helen Keller, who was played by "Little House on the Prairie" actress Melissa Gilbert.
Duke in a scene from the 1967 feature film "Valley of the Dolls" released on DVD June 13, 2006.
Patty Duke & Sean Astin
Actor Sean Astin hugs his mother, Oscar-winning actress Patty Duke, at the Creative Coalition's 2004 Capitol Hill Spotlight Awards, March 30, 2004 in Washington. D.C.
Duke presented her son with the award that pays tribute to entertainment and policy leaders who have given back to the community. Sean Astin is perhaps best known for his role playing Sam Gamgee in "Lord of the Rings."
Patty Duke & Mackenzie Astin
Patty Duke's three sons are Sean, born in 1971 and adopted by John Astin, Mackenzie, born in 1973 to Patty Duke and John Astin, and Kevin Pearce, adopted in 1988 when he was a few days old. Duke also had a stepdaughter Raelene Pearce, who died in a car crash in 1998 at age 22, and a second stepdaughter Charlene Pearce.
Here, Duke and son Mackenzie Astin arrive for a taping of the second annual TV Land Awards in Hollywood March 7, 2004.
"Bigger than the Sky"
JW Crawford and Patty Duke in "Bigger Than the Sky" in 2005. Duke's son, Sean Astin, acted alongside her in the film about a man stuck in a deadend life auditioning for a production of "Cyrano de Bergerac."
Patty Duke & John Kennedy
President John Kennedy reaches for a gift from Bobbie Whittaker, 7, in his White House office in Washington, June 20, 1963. Bobbie and his six-year-old sister, Kerrie, right, the new national poster children of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Standing, from left, are actress Patty Duke; the children's parents, Mr. and Mrs. C. Leigh Whittaker of Cincinnati; Kennedy and comedian Jerry Lewis. Kennedy received a lapel pin from Bobby, flowers from Kerrie.
Patty Duke - People's Choice Awards
Actress Patty Duke is shown at the 9th annual People's Choice Awards after winning the Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Program category for "It Takes Two" in Los Angeles on March 17, 1983.
Patty Duke - Mental health advocate
After a lifetime of mental health issues, Patty Duke was officially diagnosed with manic-depression in 1982, which she revealed in her autobiography, "Call me Anna," in 1987. The auto-biography was turned into a TV movie in 1990 in which she starred as herself. The book details her condition and treatment that subsequently stabilized her life.
Being vocal about her illness, Duke helped decrease the stigma associated with bipolar disorder. In addition to speaking out on the issue and her advocacy work, she portrayed a character in a 2011 TV series "The Protector" who struggled with the disorder.
Actress Patty Duke appears as a witness before a House Appropriations Subcommittee holding hearings on funding for mental health programs on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., April 27, 1989. At left is chairman of the panel Rep. William Natcher of Kentucky.
President of the Screen Actors Guild
Patty Duke took a leadership role in Hollywood when she became president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1985-1988.
Here, Duke, President of the Screen Actors Guild, and Robert Wise, President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, announce nominations for the 58th annual Academy Awards in Beverly Hills on Feb. 5, 1986.
Patty Duke - Mental health advocate
Duke also co-authored the book "A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depression Illness" in 1992 about her life with bipolar disorder. It was the inspiration for creation of the Oklahoma Mental Health Consumer Council 17 years ago by consumer advocate Jerry Risenhoover of Oklahoma City.
Actress and mental health advocate Patty Duke, left, speaks to Stephanie Testa, right, with the Oklahoma Mental Health Consumer Council May 1, 2008 in Oklahoma City.
Melissa Rivers & Patty Duke
Duke was one of the first celebrities to go public with bipolar disorder as it is called today. She became a mental health activist, lobbying congress and working with the National Institute of Mental Health in addition to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Melissa Rivers, left, poses for a photograph after presenting an award to Patty Duke at EICs Bipolar Depiction Briefing for the creative community in Los Angeles on Sept, 13, 2006.
Patty Duke - Hollywood Walk of Fame
Academy Award winner and television actress Patty Duke is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Aug. 17, 2004 in Hollywood.
Patty Duke
Patty Duke (Dec. 14, 1946-March 29, 2016) died of sepsis from a ruptured intestine in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho.
In describing the role of Aunt Eller she played in the musical "Oklahoma," and perhaps herself, Duke said, "This is a woman who has had strife in life, made her peace with some of it and has come to the point of acceptance. Not giving up.