Actress Patty Duke honored at Idaho memorial service
The world mourned Patty Duke when the Oscar-winning actress died on March 29 at age 69.
But it was Anna that was remembered during a public memorial service in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, on Saturday.
Oscar-winning former child star Patty Duke dies, age 69
The actress' family and friends shared stories at Lake City Church in a ceremony streamed live on local news stations. And fittingly for the star of The Miracle Worker, the event featured a sign-language interpreter.
Duke's son and fellow actor Mackenzie Astin praised her for using her own bipolar disorder and celebrity status to advocate for the mentally ill, noting, "she put a beautiful face to the illness."
"I hate that I'm here, and yet I love that I'm here to celebrate my dear teacher friend, Anna," said Melissa Gilbert, who played Helen Keller in the 1979 TV adaptation of Miracle Worker opposite Duke's Anne Sullivan and who worked with her on several other occasions.
Appreciation: Patty Duke, resilient 'miracle worker'
From the moment we met, we were thick as thieves and we remained that way for 40 years," Gilbert recalled. The Little House on thePrairie star had the congregation in stitches as she told stories about how the two of them watched each other quit smoking and start again, ganged up on a bad director and had an epic dim sum dinner with William Shatner.
"Anna loved to laugh," she said. "She had courage like no one I've ever known."
A nephew of Duke shared two telling stories about the actress. The first was an uproarious tale about being her tenant and "hearing the Oscar-winning actress scream from upstairs" about the messy state of the house he was renting from her.
The second was about witnessing her impact on people with mental illness. When fellow sufferers spoke or wrote to her to say she'd saved their lives, "she always said the same thing: Empathy and competitiveness." He called how after reading one such letter, Duke said, "If iI can just help one person figure this out, it will all have been worth it. We got our one. Now I want to get the rest of them."
He closed by thanking the people of Idaho, where she lived in the last decades of her life, for "finally calling her Anna."
