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Post by moon on Mar 29, 2016 13:46:38 GMT -5
Oh no now Patty Duke. Loved miracle worker
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Post by rick on Mar 29, 2016 13:49:22 GMT -5
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Post by 70smusicfan on Mar 29, 2016 14:23:30 GMT -5
When we were kids of 8-12 and beyond, I remember the family going to the drive-in quite often and seeing LOTS of "adult-oriented" films (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, The Godfather, etc.) - "cover your eyes" whenever nudity showed up but the violence was "okay" - including the usual spate of WW2 and Westerns. I will always remember Valley of the Dolls - thought the theme song with Dionne Warwick was as good as any - including Linda's. I remember her line "I have to get up at five o'clock in the morning and SPARKLE, Neely, SPARKLE!"
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Post by PoP80 on Mar 29, 2016 14:53:21 GMT -5
This is so shocking and sad. What the heck is going on?? Her performance in The Miracle Worker is other worldly--truly amazing.
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Post by moon on Mar 29, 2016 18:08:58 GMT -5
Thanks Rick. Great article. I remember reading she had some mental issues but never knew until , more recently the extent of it. The water scene still gets me every time!!! |
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Post by erik on Mar 29, 2016 18:59:07 GMT -5
Is it just me, or are we all being given hard lessons on our own mortality every time one of our beloved favorites in the entertainment world passes away?
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Post by philly on Mar 29, 2016 20:09:13 GMT -5
heavy.com/news/2016/03/patty-duke-cause-of-death-dead-how-did-she-die-sepsis-ruptured-intestine-age/She died of sepsis caused by a ruptured intestine, representatives told USA Today. Duke died Tuesday morning at 1:20 a.m. at a hospital near her home in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. “This morning, our beloved wife, mother, matriarch and exquisite artist, humanitarian, and champion for mental health, Anna Patty Duke Pearce, closed her eyes, quieted her pain and ascended to a beautiful place,” her family said in a statement. Patty Duke’s son, actor Sean Astin, told TMZ his mother’s passing comes as somewhat of a relief for her family, because she was in a lot of pain at the end of her life. He told the New York Times there was “so much suffering” during the later years of her life: This episode happened where her lower intestine basically ruptured and then there was septicemia. So she was alert and she was able to talk to the surgeons when she went in and that was a very good and healthy process. It was clear how serious it was. ‘This is a very, very sick woman,’ the doctor said and so everyone knew that it was a potentially fatal moment for her and she came out on the other side of the surgery … So from Thursday until this morning at 1:20 a.m (it) was a really, really, really hard process. It was hard for her, it was hard for the people who love her to help her, it was hard for the professionals. She was hospitalized in 2014 with stomach pain, according to an Associated Press story for the time. She had a heart bypass in 2004. She was also suffering from emphysema from years of smoking, Sean Astin said.
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Post by sliderocker on Mar 29, 2016 21:02:25 GMT -5
Is it just me, or are we all being given hard lessons on our own mortality every time one of our beloved favorites in the entertainment world passes away? It's a hard lesson because we all have this false idea we are going to live for a very long time. Some of us may live to a long time but others may not live a long life. Death has us all in its sights and it's a patient hunter waiting for the right moment, a moment when our life batteries are at their weakest or the right situation to arise in which death takes us as its prize. Of course, for many with chronic or terminal illnesses, some see death as a release from those illnesses and any associated pain. I question whether any of us would want to live a long life of unrelenting pain and illness. The real lesson is that death has been by our side all along. It may not like what its mission is to do and it has no choice but to collect us when we are too weak to go on. |
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Post by rick on Mar 30, 2016 1:47:06 GMT -5
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Post by Richard W on Mar 30, 2016 8:35:09 GMT -5
So I watched Valley of the Dolls last night in remembrance. Lousy movie to be sure, but it is its very lousiness that makes it enjoyable. Duke was awful in it, but then no one could have been good in such a badly scripted and directed movie. Still, it has to be said that the movie only comes to life when Duke's Neely O'Hara character is on screen. Somehow, Duke managed to elevate a lousy film with an equally lousy performance, which says something about her innate gifts as an actress. Valley of the Dolls is, perversely, one of my favorite guilty pleasures, and nearly all of the pleasure comes from Patty Duke. They had a showing of that film at the Music Box theater here in Chicago a couple of years ago, a campy costume/sing-along/audience participation event, and Duke made an appearance before the film started to introduce it, saying her great shame, humiliation, and embarrassment of having it on her resume — and the fact that the movie wouldn't die — had turned into a grudging respect for the sheer awfulness of it. She said she had grown over the years to appreciate it on the same trashy, campy level that the people in the audience were appreciating it that day. My friend and I left the theater after Duke's appearance and didn't stay for the film, both of us not enjoying those audience participation things (and we had not paid to see the movie, having lingered in our seats after a matinee of some other movie). As we exited the Music Box there was Patty Duke standing outside on the sidewalk talking with for or five people. I really wanted to say hello to her, but I would have had to interrupt the conversation to say something no doubt inane, so we left her alone, only a couple of feet away from us. I do remember her laughing and talking with the people around her, obviously fans. Below is a photo from her appearance at the Music Box that day. As for her performance in Miracle Worker, that is one of the few truly astonishing film performances. What's even more astonishing is when you consider that Bancroft and Duke did all of that night after night on Broadway. They must have been physical and mental wrecks after each performance. RIP, Patty.  |
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Post by Richard W on Mar 30, 2016 8:41:53 GMT -5
And by the way, I've always, from the first time I saw Valley of the Dolls as a kid on TV (and got hooked on it), loved the theme song.
I know that song is much derided, but it does have a gorgeous melody that imbeds itself in your memory. In my case, swirling in my mind for days after I hear it.
k.d. lang did a superb version of it on her Drag album several years ago that, in my opinion, tops Warwick's. Lang, apparently, recognized that melody and worked it for all it's worth.
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Post by erik on Mar 30, 2016 9:20:22 GMT -5
Quote by Richard w. re. "Theme From Valley Of The Dolls":
I don't know that the song itself is derided (it is actually the highest-charting hit that Dionne ever had on her own, getting to #2 in March 1968). The movie itself, of course, is quite another matter.
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Post by Richard W on Mar 30, 2016 10:06:51 GMT -5
I base the derision on the reviews of Lang's Drag album that singled out this song as unworthy of covering, essentially tethering the reputation of the movie to the song itself.
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Post by moon on Mar 30, 2016 10:28:41 GMT -5
Valley of the dolls was one of the best guilty pleasure trash movies ever!! It was so bad it was fun.
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Post by 70smusicfan on Mar 30, 2016 12:35:24 GMT -5
I never thought Valley of the Dolls was that bad, compared to a lot of the 1960s mainstream films. I think it was a different genre that straight drama. Anyway, I was listening to a Dionne Warwick greatest hits album in memory of Patty (has the VOTD theme) and realized that Linda did one of Dionne's signature songs - "Anyone who had a Heart". Listening to Linda's version, makes me think I know why she doesn't like her 70s stuff. I bought a second copy of Linda's 70s CDs for the car, and her voice isn't quite as good as her 90s voice (perhaps partly due to the better recordings in the 90s). Her 90s voice seems fuller, sweeter, more powerful, and less raspy. AND YES, I KNOW EVEN IN THE 70s SHE WAS STILL BETTER THAN POSSIBLE ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE AT THAT TIME.
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Post by rick on Mar 30, 2016 14:01:12 GMT -5
I am a bit surprised that no one commented on Patty Duke's son Sean Astin beautiful statements about his mother that I had posted late last night along with the videos. Ah, well.
Here is k.d. lang's version of "Theme From 'The Valley of the Dolls' " -- (the person who uploaded it shows a cover of lang's album "Hymns of the 49th Parallel," which was an album saluting Canadians instead of "drag," the album on which this theme appears) --
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Post by PoP80 on Mar 30, 2016 14:55:12 GMT -5
What I find most striking is that she survived a horrendous childhood and bipolar disorder and was still able to achieve so much. Tremendous talent, advocate for mental illness, President of SAG, and devoted wife and mother. It seems like she only found happiness in the last 30 years of her life, and that was a much-deserved blessing. A part of my childhood is gone with her passing, but she will remain an inspiration to others.
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Post by rick on Mar 30, 2016 15:18:57 GMT -5
What I find most striking is that she survived a horrendous childhood and bipolar disorder and was still able to achieve so much. Tremendous talent, advocate for mental illness, President of SAG, and devoted wife and mother. It seems like she only found happiness in the last 30 years of her life, and that was a much-deserved blessing. A part of my childhood is gone with her passing, but she will remain an inspiration to others. In one of the videos I posted from the Television Academy interviews with Patty Duke she says "The Patty Duke Show" was "prescient" in that it featured "two sides" -- the sedate side and the crazy, out-of-control side, which could have been a metaphor for her later-diagnosed Bi-Polar Disorder. |
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Post by 70smusicfan on Mar 30, 2016 15:25:45 GMT -5
I am a bit surprised that no one commented on Patty Duke's son Sean Astin beautiful statements about his mother that I had posted late last night along with the videos. Ah, well. I think the fact that everyone puts her death in their own personal terms (their own memories, or loose mental associations like my VOTD theme by Dionne Warwick with Ms. Duke after seeing the film at 9 years old) just goes to show how deep our feeling/memories are of her. Her own sons reflections are from a different and more intimate perspective. Perhaps as we process her death more fully, we will more fully appreciate her life as well. |
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Post by rick on Mar 30, 2016 17:18:57 GMT -5
I am a bit surprised that no one commented on Patty Duke's son Sean Astin beautiful statements about his mother that I had posted late last night along with the videos. Ah, well. I think the fact that everyone puts her death in their own personal terms (their own memories, or loose mental associations like my VOTD theme by Dionne Warwick with Ms. Duke after seeing the film at 9 years old) just goes to show how deep our feeling/memories are of her. Her own sons reflections are from a different and more intimate perspective. Perhaps as we process her death more fully, we will more fully appreciate her life as well. Bill, yes, I hear what you are saying. This one hit me hard. Here is Patty Duke reminiscing about the making of "The Valley of the Dolls" with Bruce Vilanch. Patty is very compassionate toward Judy Garland, who was signed to play Helen Lawson originally -- |
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Post by erik on Mar 30, 2016 17:33:19 GMT -5
Quote by Richard W. re. VALLEY OF THE DOLLS:
I think a lot of the camp, trashy quality must lie with the Jacqueline Susann novel of the same name upon which this film is based, and how it was adapted. It's one of those films that's the way it is because there just isn't any possible way to make a silk purse from this particular sow's ear. But besides Patty Duke's being in it, there's also Sharon Tate, Barbara Parkins, Lee Grant, Martin Milner, and, in a very early appearance (blink and you'll miss him), Richard Dreyfuss. This, and, save for the songs (written by Dory and Andre Previn), the music score, such as it is, was by John Williams, who of course went on, to say the least, to bigger and better things.
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Post by Richard W on Mar 30, 2016 20:24:58 GMT -5
Well, yes, Erik, the (now) campiness of the movie is partly due to its late '60s trappings (and those truly awful musical numbers, and the dialog, and the acting, and the ridiculous montages, etc.), but the book, awkwardly written pot boiling roman a clef that it was (and a damn fun read), was set mainly in the '40s and '50s. Updating it to the then-current late '60s certainly changed the tone.
It was a big box office hit, though.
I remember the first time I saw the movie as kid on TV, I recreated Neely's breakdown in the alley in my bedroom. Thank god there was no Facebook or Youtube then.
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Post by erik on Mar 30, 2016 20:57:46 GMT -5
Having seen VALLEY OF THE DOLLS recently on TV, I'm not too terribly bothered by the weirdness of the plot or the acting (truth be told, there are films made today that are a whole lot worse than this one, and made for obscene amounts of money), but it is clearly a period piece, the swingin' late 1960s and a lot of great actresses caught in the grips of a film that is memorable for, arguably, all the wrong reasons.
But back to Patty Duke--I have seen THE MIRACLE WORKER a number of times on TV; and her performance in that has to count as one for the ages, especially because she was still in her teens at the time it was made (1962), and because the role of a blind girl is not easy to pull off without falling into a caricature.
What is kind of amazing is that that particular film's director is Arthur Penn, who had come from television into feature films and became a sought-after director with this film. I say this because, five years after THE MIRACLE WORKER, he makes a wildly different film about two people who are young, who are in love...and who kill people: BONNIE AND CLYDE
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Post by rick on Mar 31, 2016 0:38:43 GMT -5
I remember the first time I saw the movie as kid on TV, I recreated Neely's breakdown in the alley in my bedroom. Thank god there was no Facebook or Youtube then. Richard, you can re-enact it now and record it, upload it to YouTube, so all of us can see it now. Aw, c'mon!  |
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Post by Richard W on Apr 1, 2016 8:29:07 GMT -5
I'm afraid all of the spontaneity has gone out of my performance. I mean, I can still roll around an alley with the trash cans, but the raw emotion just isn't there.
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Post by moon on Apr 1, 2016 19:22:55 GMT -5
Yikes she had emphazema too. RIP Patty Duke you deserve it
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Post by Richard W on Apr 1, 2016 21:22:37 GMT -5
There are countless fine film performances, but Duke's performance as Hellen Keller in "Miracle Worker" is one of the few truly astonishing ones.
That one-room, nine-minute battle between Duke and Bancroft is shattering.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 3, 2016 15:06:22 GMT -5
Remember Patty's singing career? It was the thing to do back in those days.
Quite an interesting life:
Those were the days.
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Post by PoP80 on Apr 3, 2016 16:02:14 GMT -5
Yes, and imagine re-creating that 8x a week when they did it on Broadway.
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