Oscar winner Patty Duke is dead – VG

Actress Patty Duke died Tuesday morning, 69 years old.

Patty Duke had a variety of roles on both stage, canvas and on television through seven (!) decades. As a child star, she made it big on Broadway at the very end of the 1950s when, as very young teenager playing political activist and author Helen Keller in the play “The Miracle Worker.”

The play held out on Broadway almost two years before it was adapted for film. Where played Duke in the role of Helen Keller to resounding success; she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and became the youngest until then to win an Oscar – 16 years old – in a competitive category.

For this role she was also one of its two Golden Globe Awards in his career.

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Colleagues have already started using Twitter to recalls Patty Duke, including Star Trek legend William Shatner.

the deaf actress Marlee Matlin – known from the television series “the President” and not least for his Oscar-winning role in “Children of A Lesser God” – have also expressed their sympathy.

Alyssa Milano also knew very well who Patty Duke was.

in the 1980s, Patty Duke incidentally president of the Screen Actors Guild, the union whose annual rates usually is seen as an indicator of who comes away with just Academy Awards.

Duke also had a starring role in “Valley of the Dolls” (1967), had own tV show and a number of minor roles in various sitcoms and Hollywood movies until a few years ago.

Patty Duke struggled for years with a bipolar disorder that led to mood swings which in turn led to high alcohol consumption, the development of anorexia and more tablet overdoses. This came partly forward of her 1987 memoir, “Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke” (her baptismal name was Anna Marie Duke), and she fought later an ardent struggle to focus on mental illness.

Patty Duke was married four times, had three children and three grandchildren.