Medford mail tribune., June 26, 1960, Image 50

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How Patty Duke Learned
On Monday, the famed blind and
deaf educator celebrates her 80th birthday;
that night, a Broadway audience
will applaud a child actress who portrays
Miss Keller at 7 a role
that required a youngster to understand
what many adults never do
By ISABELLA TAVES
One night during a performance of the Broadway play,
"Tho Miracle Worker," an electric cable broke loose
bi.ckstae, struck a bar, and broke another cable, making a
terrific racket. People in the audience jumped, and the don
in the play let out a yelp.
But Patty Duke, who acts the role of a seven-year-old
blind and deaf girl, didn't flinch. Even members of the cast
had the eerie feeling that Patty really hadn't heard a sound.
Patty explained to me: "All 1 did was to squeeze the little
dog I was holding. That's why he yelped. Everybody thought
it was the noise which had scared him. But it was me."
In the theater, this is called "staying in character." It's
also proof that Patty Duke is the outstanding child actress
of the day.
Certainly the part she interprets is one of the most difficult
ever demanded of a child. She is called upon to play young
Helen Keller, who lost her sight and bearing as a result of
illness at 20 months. Helen also was believed to have sull'ered
.serious brain damage, though in fact she had merely shut
herself oil from a world she couldn't understand.
It was up to Patty to dramati.e this tormented withdrawal
- -and also to show how, under skillful guidance, Melon be
gan to emerge as a full-dimensional person who would go on
to become one of the most famous women of our time, an
PHOTOGRAPH BY RICHARD CH EC AN I
Helen Keller as she appears today and, be
low, Patty Duke who learned to portray her
as a blind, deaf child in "The Miracle Worker."
international leader in the rehabilitation of the handicapped.
To try to understand the inner agonies of Helen, Patty
began researching into those early years. Research was
nothing new to the youngster. In 1958. she won $32,000 in the
popular-music category on the TV quiz show, "The $114,000
Question." But the bits Patty collected on Helen's first years
didn't give much basis for characterization. Only one fact
gave Patty an insight into Helen, the child: as a baby, she
had been precocious.
At ten months, -Helen had been able to say "howdy" and
had pointed to the tea table and said "tea." Earlier than that,
she was able to say "water" and was fascinated by shadows.
Kollowing her tragic illness, she grew up physically strong
and healthy, but her adoring parents thought her mind was
gone and consequently spoiled her by giving in to every
whim and tantrum.
Patty says: "I decided that whatever approach I took to
Helen as this dillicult child, it had to start with the fact that
she had. an eager mind, that she had been very active."
In the beginning, it was so like a game that Patty didn't
mind giving up afternoon dancing and swimming sessions
with her friends. After school, she would go to the apartment
of her manager, John Ross, and pretend to be blind by clos
ing her eyes and stumbling around the apartment. She would
I
0
to Be Helen Keller
trip over furniture, misjudge distances,
hump into the Rosses' tiny chihuahua. Other
times, she would pretend she was deaf. The
Rosses would let their telephone ring until
she trained herself "not to hear it."
Then, one day, Ross gave her a copy of a
television script written about Helen Keller.
"We read it and realized that the part would
be played with my eyes open," Patty says.
"I don't know why we hadn't thought about
that before it was so obvious but we
hadn't. That made it easier. And when I
found out that Helen was going to have her
temper tantrums right on stage, 1 must ad
mit I reallyjoued the part!" Patty, you see.i
is a normal mischievous kid as well as a
mature actress.
Blind adults often train themselves to
move their eyeballs in the direction of
sounds to avoid the characteristic glazed
stare of the sightless. In reverse. Pally had
to train herself to stare ahead, unblinking,
as a blind child does.
, "After a while, things really do go out of
focus if you don't blink, and you really be
gin to believe that you live in a blurred
world," Patty explains. "That was hard to
learn. The fun came when the Rosses let me
practice tumbling around on the floor, fight
ing. They sometimes showed scars after 1
came at them and they didn't get out of my
way fast enough!"
As part of her preparation, Patty visited
a school for tho deaf to listen to the lone
of voice of deaf persons and to watch how
"it takes every inch of their bodies" to talk.
She also met the four blind girls who were
going to be in the play.
At fust, trying to be natural with them
was agony for Patty. Then she learned the
marvelous and most important lesson of all
that they were "just like everybody else."
By the time Halloween came along, they
all dressed up and went "triek-or-treating"
backstage. Now they are teaching Patty
Braille; she already has mastered the alpha
bet and short words.
The externals of acting, however accom
plished, don't make a fine actress, just a
mimic. Patty is more than a mimic because
she has "reached" inside handicapped pel -sons
as perhaps only a sensitive child can.
At first repelled by their handicaps, she is
now one with them understanding but not
condescending, sympathetic but not senti
mental. Inner feelings turn Patty Duke into
young Helen Keller at curtain time more
than fixed stares or voice tones. In learn
ing this deep understanding, Patty truly
"learned" her role and learned something
few people ever do.
Proof of this is the number of handi
capped persons who come backstage,
individually and in groups. Patty is the one
they most want to sec or touch. With blind
people, she has learned to be polite and not
over-solicitous. With the deaf, she practices
the manual alphabet and beams like a proud
pigeon when she makes herself understood.
Recently I was in the dressing room of
Anne Bancroft, who stars as Helen's first
teacher, when Patty knocked on the door
and asked: "Annie, I have two deaf ladies
who'd like to meet you. May we come in?"
When they were introduced, Patty ex
plained to Anne, "This lady is completely
deaf; the other one hears a little." And then
to me: "'They read your lips."
In the conversation, a misunderstanding
came up, and Anne resorted to the manual
alphabet, at which she is expert. Patty tried
to follow and, not quite so expert, settled
for letting the ladies teach her sign lan
guage for "thank you" and "good-by."
After they had shaken hands, Patty fol
lowed them to the door and made the float
ing gesture which means "good-by." One of
the elderly ladies reached down and hugged
her. And I felt like hugging her myself.
vr i it.
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