https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahtRgCeHEbQ
Patty Duke passed away today at the age of 69 due to sepsis from a ruptured intestine according to her agent Mitchell K. Stubbs.
Patty Duke had an horrendous childhood because of parents and her abusive talent managers, even though she had huge sucess on Broadway and on the big screen playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker at such a young age. In 1963, she landed the role of Patty Lane and her lookalike cousin Cathy in the sitcom The Patty Duke Show that still airs today in syndication on Me TV and other channels. In 1967, she starred as Neely O’Hara in the groundbreaking Valley of the Dolls. Throughout the years, she continued acting nonstop. She even starred in The Miracle Worker again, but this time as Keller’s teacher Anne Sullivan.
But her life was not easy, a very short lived marriage, alcohol abuse and eventually the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. That diagnosis saved her life and she brought awareness to it by talking about it on several talk shows. She wrote an autobiography called Call Me Anna, that is a must read, and starred in a movie of the week based on it. All of this brought bipolar disorder to the forefront and made people aware of it.
As the years went on she continued to talk about it and act constantly. Thirty years ago on March 15th, she married the love of her life Michael Pearce, moved to Idaho and had a son with him. She has two other sons that she raised with John Astin, Sean and Mackenzie Astin, both of whom are actors.
When I think of Patty Duke, I think of a woman who I revere first, and then the actress who I admire. She was so inspirational and someone Hollywood and the world will be talking about for decades to come because of the huge impact she left on it and left on us.
So today please honor this wonderful woman by watching one of her many great works to let her know that we will always love her. I know that is how I am going to spend the today.
Personally, I am sorry I have never met, but I am honored that was able to chat with her on the phone on more than one occasion. She was as warm as you would expect to her be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rjug4B1R4I
The Patty Duke Show is coming to Me TV on January 4th and they reunited Cathy and Patty Lane, I mean Cathy (ha ha) and Patty Duke, with Cathy’s dad and Patty’s uncle aka William Schallert. Seeing the three of them together in this commercial, brought a huge smile on my face. Whoever came up with the commercial deserves a big old raise!
Tonight’s episode of The Strain on FX at 10p is the best one yet, and they have all been really good.
Eph (Corey Stoll), The Jew (David Bradley), Nora (MÃa Maestro) and Jim (Sean Astin) have figured out how to kill the Vampires at night and that way is UV lights. Where to find them? They go to a medical supplies store, but they have already closed. Since this is dire times, they break in. While they are there, they run into The Exterminator (Kevin Durand). He has the same idea as them and he’s already taken all of the UV lights. After some negotiation, he decides to give them six.
When they are done, they decide to stock up on some food at a gas station. Sadly, for them the Vampires have shown up and they are there for them. Now the five of them along with the Hacker are going to try to get out of there alive. Not all of them will. That’s right, someone will die in this real nail biter of an episode.
So tune in for the most exciting show of the summer tonight at 10p. If you’ve never seen an episode, you can catch old episodes on OnDemand and the FX Now app.
Before Sean Astin was taking a beating trying to get the chance to play football for Notre Dame, he was taking a beating from his mom is Please Don’t Hit Me, Mom. He looks the same now as he did when he was 9 in that 1981 movie.
The legendary Patty Duke guest stars tonight at 9p on Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva as a woman who needs Jane to defend her. Duke plays Rita, a woman who was fired from her job and loses her pension after she took down a shoplifter. At first Jane thinks it is an open and shut case, but this wasn’t her first or tenth wrongdoing at the store. The manager supplies video of her telling customers the products there are basically crap, so Jane feels that her case is lost. Will Jane be able to get Rita her pension back or will she lose the case? Tune in for this funny episode that shows a different side of Miss Patty Duke.
Earlier this week I was lucky enough and honored to be on a conference call with one of the greatest actresses of our time and she talked to us about her role on Drop Dead Diva and what’s next for her.
Miss Duke told us she loves to work and she especially loved working on the show. She said, “I tell you, I had not had that kind of fun on a set in I don’t know, maybe 40 years. I mean, the people were so just gracious and kind first of all and Brooke, on my lord, the first day that we worked she had about six single-spaced pages to say and I was the defendant and I was sitting there on my hands doing nothing while this woman is struggling to get through six pages. She’s brilliant. She’s very loving and honest to God, I was just thrilled to have the opportunity. You know, at my age we don’t work all that often and I’m a workaholic so I’ve been in withdrawal for quite some time now.”
When she was asked how much she is like her spunky character on the dramedy she said, “I think there’s quite a bit. I was going to say not much at all but I just realized that yes, there’s a lot of me in Rita. I don’t know that I would be as bold as Rita under the same circumstances. I had to go way inside and find that kind of brass.”
Duke is not the only legend on the show tonight, Rhoda’s Valerie Harper plays a judge on the show also tonight. I had to know from her what it was like to have two such wonderful actresses in one episode. She said, “It was such fun. You know, we were never together. She was on the bench and I was at the events table but at the coffee table, we had a ball but I really felt the mile marker that we were at least in the same space doing what we do. She was so funny.” Both of them are so funny on this episode, that you have to tune in to see them acting together.
And she told us, there is a funny role she is dying to play, “I would like to – truthfully – I would feel that I’d died and went to heaven if I could get the part of Memaw on The Big Bang Theory.” So let’s get her that role.
Whether she gets that role or not, she has another one lined up. She let us know she is going back to the stage in a role she has wait forever to play. She revealed to us, “The timing is only perfect. All my life I have wanted to play Mary Lincoln. I have missed every production that was done because somebody else did it. I am now a year away or a year in the process of getting ready to play Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. First we’ll play it in the museum in Illinois and then – are you ready for this – at the Ford Theater.”
So now we know how much fun she has on DDD, how much fun she would have playing on TBBT and how excited she is for her next role. This was my favorite thing she told us on the call, “I’m a giggler, I’m a giggler, yes.” So be prepared to giggle like her when you watch her on Drop Dead Diva tonight.
