Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
I've been long absent from the AICN Legends column, partly because I've been so busy doing interviews about current films and partly because I've enjoyed kicking back and watching Quint and Mr. Beaks submit phenomenal pieces with such worthy candidates as Ernest Borgnine and Angie Dickinson. My taking time off from the column certainly has nothing to do with the lack of offers. I've got a small stack of business cards and message from people representing potential Legends articles, many of which I will make happen. And hopefully to make up for lost time, I've got two subjects to present to you this week. The one that I'll post later this week is more of a behind-the-scenes type, and the other is the Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress Patty Duke, whose personal struggles are as well documented (mostly by her) as her professional triumphs in such films as THE MIRACLE WORKER (in which Duke played Helen Keller), BILLIE, ME, NATALIE (which features the screen debut of Al Pacino), THE SWARM, PRELUDE TO A KISS, and, of course, the cult classic VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, in which she plays the Neely O'Hara, whose over-the-top performance is still praised by audiences around the world.
When she was still a teenager, Duke headlined three seasons of "The Patty Duke Show," continuing acting on stage (where she and Anne Bancroft originated THE MIRACLE WORKER), and made countless TV appearances in series and movies. But it was her struggle with drug, alcohol, and mental illness (she was diagnosed as manic-depressive after years of struggling with the disorder) that garnered her quite a bit of attention in her 30s and beyond. Her brutally honest autobiography "Call Me Anna" was really the first of its kind for a former child actor (or any actor) to come so clean about the pain she suffered in her life, including sexual abuse by her childhood managers. Duke even played herself (from her mid-30s and beyond) in the television-movie adaptation of the book. In 1990, she starred in a television version of THE MIRACLE WORKER, this time playing Annie Sullivan to Melissa Gilbert's Helen Keller.
Many actresses get called "brave" for some very silly reasons, but Patty Duke is the embodiment of the word, and her thriving career as both an actor and mental-illness advocate is beyond impressive. She also happens to be the mother of both Sean and Mackenzie Astin, the sons she had with actor John Astin. The greatest thing about talking to Duke--and this should come as no surprise--is that she doesn't hold back about any topic, and she's an sweet and energetic human being.
The reason for our talk is the upcoming appearance she's making at Chicago's iconic Music Box Theatre this Saturday, November 20 at 1:00pm for a special screening VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. Click Here for all the details on the event, and if you live in the area, don't you dare miss it and be sure to get your tickets in advance.
In the meantime, let Duke herself remind you why I kind of insisted she be a part of the AICN Legends series. She has some great stories and remembrances, and she's not afraid to use them. Please enjoy Patty Duke…
Patty Duke: Hello, Steve.
Capone: Hi Patty. How are you?
PD: I’m good. I’m so sorry that we were tardy.
Capone: Oh that’s not a problem.
PD: [Laughs] I have a neurotic thing about being punctual; it makes me crazy if I’m late for something.
Capone: Really, it's not a problem at all. I guess let’s first talk real quick about why you are coming to Chicago, since that’s kind of what this is tied to--the screening of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.
PD: Go figure! [Laughs]
Capone: Have you done a lot of these sort of events with this particular film where you come out and do a Q&A after a screening?
PD: Not a lot. I would say in the last 20 years maybe three.
Capone: Okay.
PD: One that was great fun was when I was playing Madam Morrible in WICKED in San Francisco, the gay community got together and put on this evening. I’m telling you I haven’t laughed so hard or long in a lot of years. We had a ball.
Capone: I think you are going to have a very similar crowd here in Chicago.
PD: I can’t wait. I tell you it is an astonishing sensation to be the recipient of that kind of energy and love. I’m telling you ,it just staggers me.
Capone: Do you remember when you first got that script--or maybe you had been familiar with the book--but why do you think that they wanted you to be in this, because this was kind of a big change for what you had been doing up to that point.
PD: Yes indeed, and they didn’t think, I forced myself onto it. [laughs] And, boy, did I live to regret it. I was very familiar with the book and, of course, with that role in the book, so when they were deciding to do the movie I asked my agents to be relentless to get me an audition. I got the audition; I was petrified, because it was a step. I was little Patty Duke, the cute little TV lady, so in those days, you have to remember, this was very daring stuff. So I did the audition and I got the job, and I don’t know what they--and they in this case becomes the director [Mark Robson] to me--I’m not sure what he was expecting or wanting, but he sure didn’t know how to go about it. I think maybe when he put on his director hat, it had some…I’m trying to be kind.
Capone: You don’t have to be kind.
PD: It had some viciousness in it, and I’ve learned through these 56 years that that’s not how to get to me. [Laughs] And of course, he thought I did a wonderful job by the time I got to the end of it, and I just wanted to get out of there. But what he said was “You see? I got that performance out of you.” That hit a place in me of… what?… rebellion. “You didn’t get anything! I either willingly or unwillingly gave it.” At any rate, that was the sort of relationship the director and I had. I was naïve. I was 20. I thought we were making this serious story about how people get addicted, and how some come out of it and some do not. Well, it took me to the very end to figure out, “Oh, this is exploitation,” and all of my overacting worked very well for it. [laughs]
Capone: Well now you’ve gone on record as saying you weren’t particularly happy with the finished film at the time.
PD: No, but you know something? It feels so luxurious to be able to say this now:the gay community in this country led me to not only like it, but enjoy it with them. You know? When you can fix what you think is a mistake and come out the other side, I can’t ask for more. But it truly is the gay community that did it.
Capone: I had read somewhere that your relationship with Sharon Tate on the film, that she was really the first person to teach you about wearing makeup and doing your hair.
PD: Oh God! First of all she was as much an angel on the inside as she was on the outside, and people like to think of beautiful people like that, especially blondes, as if they are airheads. There was nothing airhead about this lady. At any rate, we had fun. She taught me how to make up my eyes. She wore this pencil thing over her lid and she perfected it and she taught it to me. Unfortunately I didn’t have her lids.
Capone: I think people don’t give her enough credit as an actor either, because her talent was often kind of lost behind this pretty face.
PD: Exactly, yeah. You are so stunned by that kind of beauty, that you often don’t look past it, and I actually thought of all of us, she did the best acting job in the movie, because she never went over the top. She couldn’t have, because I was taking up all of that space.
Capone: [Laughs] I don’t know you were the only one, but yeah. I’ve heard you talk about this before, and everyone knows that Judy Garland had originally been cast in this film [in the role of Helen Lawson], and you had done some rehearsal for her. You must have felt a real connection with her since both of your were child stars who had addiction problems.
PD: You got it.
Capone: Can you talk a little bit about that?
PD: First of all, we weren’t allowed to say that our roles were based on Judy and Ethel Merman, and I don’t remember who the other one was [pin-up girl and actress Carole Landis], but hello! I had mixed feelings when I heard that Judy was cast. The reason being, I didn’t like the exploitation of her, but I also know we needed the money, and that she needed the money. She also needed to punch up the public respect for her. So we met, and of course I was instantly in love. She was very fragile and yet she was really giving it her best. The director, of course, was not a very compassionate person, and he would, for instance, refuse to say hello to her in the morning. Now that sounds nonsensical on both ends, but this is a woman from a time where people had manners, and what it did was appeal to her insecurities, and so day by day, it chopped away at her ability to do the job.
Capone: Do you think he thought he was helping the performance somehow by ostracizing her?
PD: He may well have. In his mind, he may well have said “I’ve got to beat these girls into submission," or something less ugly than that. Nonetheless, he made some choices that didn’t work.
Capone: Well clearly not, if he had to fire her eventually.
PD: Oh, my heart. The day that happened, she was in her, what we call "permanent dressing room." A permanent dressing room is a really nice kind of suite thing, and on the set you had this little box, and that’s your dressing room. So I was going to the commissary, so I went to her dressing room and I asked if she wanted anything from the commissary, because I knew she wasn’t eating very well or much, and she said "A Hershey bar!" So I went to the commissary, after I got my tuna sandwich, I got a Hershey bar, even though I knew that she needed and I went back, and the dressing room door was locked, and there was a cacophony of sounds coming from it. I kept knocking and identifying myself to no avail.
So I went to my room to call her. I called her, and she told me that she was let go. And what happened then was she got out of control and had a tantrum, which I, in my undiagnosed bi-polar state, understood completely. And then she was gone, and to this day, I have some grief about that, but we finished the film and we did all of the PR for it and all of that, and she called and invited me to see her opening night at The Palace in New York. Well, I was just beside myself. So we go to the Palace, and on she comes, and she’s wearing this suit from the bathroom scene, the one with all of the spangles, the copper colored one and I just got hysterical, because I knew she didn’t pay them for it.
At any rate, I would not trade those moments that I did have with her for anything, and Susan Hayward, of course, was a wonderful, loving, gentle person. She comes off in movies as kind of strong and that word I don’t want to use, but she was incredibly gentle and kind, and so when we did that scene, pulling off her hair, it really was acting.
Capone: Let me back up some, because I have such a vivid memory of seeing THE MIRACLE WORKER when I was probably in high school. It still remains difficult for me to wrap my brain around the fact that you were 12 years old and what you had to put yourself through to gain that level of understanding to play that part.
PD: You know, I too have done some introspection about it and I’m not sure that I really know, except that that little kid that was me was very tuned into emotions, and of course I was surrounded by the geniuses of the time. During this introspection, I had to wonder if what I was going through personally at the time--dealing with those people who were my managers and the abuse and all of that--I had to wonder if it wasn’t my form of therapy that playing Helen was keeping me going in my real life, because I got to hit a grown up, and people applauded.
Capone: Was playing her kind of an escape for you?
PD: I think it was. Again, I don’t know that I knew that at the time, except instinctively, but certainly, and I have talked about this in therapy with different doctors, and they feel that it was an outlet for me that allowed me to endure the punishment at home. Again, I don’t know for sure. I really don’t. I just know that there was a human connection to Helen that even I didn’t understand.
Capone: It definitely went even deeper for me, because you not only played the character convincingly, you actually got me thinking, “What would my life be like with those disabilities?” I always found myself trying to get in Helen's in her head. That’s a very rare thing.
PD: I know. I’ve had the same thing ever since I played Helen. I’ve said to myself, "I actually believe I would fold," but again as the years have gone by and life has dealt me what it’s dealt me and I’ve dealt it back, I realize that one of the many things I learned while playing that role was survival. Again, I would not have been able to articulate that then at all.
Capone: Can you talk a little bit about what clearly had to have been a partnership with Anne Bancroft in the play and in the movie, too.
PD: Oh my. When we were on that stage or in front of the camera, in my opinion, we were one. When the Oscars came about and we both won, it was almost validation to me of my theory that “You can’t have one without the other!”
Capone: That’s true.
PD: Beside being so brilliant and on the money on stage and on the screen, she was so good to me. You know, we have what we call in the theater “Half Hour,” which means a lot of things. First of all, it means you’ve got to be there, but it also is the time when we transition from the world to the world that we are creating, and it’s sacred. She would let me come into her room while she got ready, because I would get there early and get it all ready and put the burnt cork on my face and run down, and she would let me visit with her for that half hour, and I can’t begin to tell you the things that we talked about. I know there was a lot of laughter, but also she clued me in about a person getting her period, you know? It was that intimate, and I was very gratefully that Mel [Brooks] invited me to speak at her memorial. At the same time, she'll never die for me.
Capone: Wow. And of course you mentioned the Oscars. What do you remember about that night? Who gave you your Oscar?
PD: Yes, George Chakiris. He had won for WEST SIDE STORY the year before.
Capone: Right.
PD: It was very peculiar, that night. First of all my mother was not allowed to go. The managers went and brought their little dog in a purse, but my mother wasn’t allowed to go. [laughs] So, it was already sort of that awkwardness, and who expected to win? I mean Angela Lansbury was nominated, for crying out loud. So when I won, it was almost an out-of-body experience. I went up there. I don’t know how I got up there; I really don’t. And I stood there, and again this extraordinary flow of love and acceptance was coming my way, and the only thing I could utter was “Thank you.” I wish I had had a better vocabulary at the time, but that was truly what I was feeling through my whole being, “Thank you.” Maybe for five minutes, I could believe that I deserved it.
Capone: In the TV movie, when you played Annie Sullivan, did that feel like it was bringing that initial experience full circle for you?
PD: Oh, my dear, it was passing the gauntlet. I had wanted to do that since I was a child. When I couldn’t sleep at night, I would say all of her lines throughout the play. So when Melissa Gilbert’s company invited me to join up, it was like “My God, they must have been in my head all of these years,” and then all of a sudden this “Thunk!” happened where the realization that I was going to step into the biggest shoes I ever saw. I worried about it for days, and then I finally called Annie Bancroft and I said “I have to tell you this, and whatever you think, that’s what I will do. I’m going to play in a remake of THE MIRACLE WORKER and I’m going to play your part.” She sounded so excited and I said “Annie, I’m so scared,” and she said “Of what, being better?” I’m telling you, I was speechless after that, and not until my later years did I realize what generosity that was.
Capone: Were you afraid of being better?
PD: No! I was afraid of being a mess. But that was such a high compliment coming from my goddess.
Capone: Let me ask you about your autobiography. When it came out, was it really the first book of it’s kind by someone who grew up as a child actor to ever come out and to be that open and honest?
PD: I don’t really know and I’m cautious to say, but it certainly was among the very few and to choose to come forward about the mental illness diagnosis and all of that. That was pretty early on. Thank God, we have now seen a number of people--William Styron and a whole bunch of others--come forward. And what we are doing, our attempt, is to reach people who are still struggling and say “Look, honest to God, you can do this. You can be well.”
I travel the country talking on this topic, and honest to God, it gets to be like a revival meeting after a while. People pop up and tell me what they are going through. For instance, someone will pop up and say “Well, I was taking a medication, but I got to feeling so good, I stopped,” and that’s when I want to leap from the stage and rattle them, because it’s false security. I’m sure there’s someone in the world who can do it, but by in large, if you are prescribed a certain medication for your particular symptoms, that’s it. You are taking that medication, and it should only be tweaked if you are having some side effect or something like that. I thought I was giving of myself to go on these tours, but I get it all back in spades.
Capone: I wondered about when you were younger, in your teen years--you were the youngest actor to win an Oscar at the time, you had a big TV show, and you were making movies. Did you have, as a kid, any coping mechanisms that dealt with these career pressures?
PD: I don’t really think so, but remember those two people, the Rosses [John and Ethel], made sure that I was humbled at every turn and also that they kept any kind of newspaper articles or television interviews, even "The Patty Duke Show" was off limits to me.
Capone: You couldn’t watch it?
PD: No. So, yes, I had a sense of what was happening to me in the world, but I had a greater sense of that I was not very bright and certainly not pretty, and I was dealing on a day to day basis. I didn’t get to look at the bigger picture.
Capone: Do you remember specifically after you won the Oscar what they did to “humble you,” as you put it?
PD: “You certainly wouldn’t be here except for us.”
Capone: Oh wow…
PD: “If it wasn’t for us, you would be working in the Five and Dime or walking the streets.” And those were the lighter ones. [Laughs] I mean, when I was seven years old, Ethel, the woman of the couple, came to me and said, “Anna Marie [Duke's real name] is dead; you’re Patty now.” Hello! It took me 30 years to figure out that I needed Anna to be alive.
Capone: How liberating was getting that manic-depression diagnosis to you?
PD: Oh, dear God, it was the beginning of having a life. Many people are frightened by the diagnosis, and maybe somewhere I was, but the relief was so overwhelming that it was, “Okay, bring it on. What medicine do you want me to take? Okie dokie.” And within three weeks, I leveled off. And I’m a human being, I can feel highs and lows now, but they are not the uncontrollable ones. I say that I control my illness, it doesn’t control me anymore. I did some mortally embarrassing things in public before I was diagnosed, such as marrying someone I didn’t know for 13 days.
[Both Laugh]
PD: I can laugh about it now.
Capone: Speaking of one of your other husbands, a lot of our readers on our site are huge fans of your son Sean’s work.
PD: I don’t blame them!
Capone: All the way back form THE GOONIES to RUDY and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Were you ever concerned about your son’s going into acting based on the experiences you’ve had?
PD: Oh definitely. Based on my background, no kid of mine was ever going to go into show business, and when the opportunities arose, John Astin and I talked about it, and he was very level headed. He said to me, “The difference is, we will still be their parents. It’s not as if we are turning them over to somebody else who’s going to run their lives and their business.” So, that’s how Sean and I did that first thing we did, that after school special called PLEASE DON’T HIT ME, MOM [1981], and folks had no idea how close to the truth it was. [laughs]
Capone: Now the DVDs of "The Patty Duke Show" just came out last year, if I’m not mistaken.
PD: I was amazed. Of course, I’m amazed at anything electronic. When I want to send an email, I say “Mike!” [her husband's name]
Capone: But has the release gotten you a new generation of fans?
PD: I’m hoping. I’m noticing it a little here and there, but I have no compunction about identifying myself as Sean Astin’s mother. [Laughs]
Capone: You mentioned before about your speaking engagements and the tours that you have done. Tell me about your interaction with fans. Do you enjoy those?
PD: I do. I really do. You know, one thing that was never taken away from me, I was born loving people and needing to have it reciprocated. So, I seek people out. I force them to make eye contact, whether they know me as Patty Duke or just this strange-looking little lady. We make contact, and that matters to me. In my fantasy world, we all do that; we don’t pass one another on the street without nodding or saying “Hi.” Sadly, that’s my fantasy world.
Capone: Speaking of some of your biggest fans, have you ever tried to sort of figure out why you are so popular in the gay community?
PD: Have I ever! When it first started, when I first became aware of it, I was like, “What…what…what am I supposed to do with this?” And it was back before talking about "gayness" was acceptable. What I have finally figured out, and again I have no idea if this is right or wrong--it works for me--is that it has to do with the pain that people who find themselves of a different persuasion than the majority, the isolation and the pain that those kids experience. VALLEY OF THE DOLLS gave them some place to connect, to express themselves, and I think that has a lot to do with it. To say nothing of when I talk about my mental illness. Many ignorant people think gay people are all mentally ill. [Laughs] And some of them are and some of them aren’t, but I think my being willing to talk openly about that makes a connection with them, as well.
Capone: You certainly have one of the more bizarre and inspirational life stories that I’ve ever heard.
PD: I’m telling you. When I get up in the morning, I think I’m a regular person, and then we have a conversation, and I think “Holy shit.” And I thought I was just going “La0la” through life.
Capone: Well I don’t mean to make you feel bad about it.
PD: No, I don’t feel bad. All of it, I wouldn’t trade it, honest to God. If I knew that this was the outcome, I wouldn’t trade it. The outcome is, I lead a very balanced life. I have my highs and my lows, just like any other person, and I have this history to draw from.
Capone: It certainly is one that I think a lot of people are very interested in. I hope that I get to see you and say “Hi” when you come to Chicago.
PD: Oh, Steve, I hope so too. Please make that happen. I want to put a face to the voice.
Capone: I will do my best to be there.
PD: Try to make it.
Capone: I absolutely will. Patty, thank you so much, and please thank Mike as well.
PD: You have been wonderful, Steve, thank you.
Capone: Thanks. Take care.
PD: You too. Bye.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcool.com
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