Show Business: Old Pro at Ten

The moment the camera focused on the kids in the cast, Armstrong Circle Theater’s Zone of Silence (CBS) changed from a quiet, competent documentary into a warm and moving play. A tour through The Bronx’s St. Joseph’s School for the Deaf turned into a tense, hour-long exploration of all the dimensions of a handicapped child’s difficulties. With consistent skill, none of the youngsters ever seemed to slip out of the isolating “zone of silence,” but none of them fitted the difficult script with more professional precision than a blue-eyed, bang-trimmed ten-year-old named Patty Duke.

Patty’s familiarity with her role was understandable. Even while her taped performance in Zone was on the air last week, Patty was onstage in Boston playing a similar but far more difficult part. She is the deaf, mute and blind child of The Miracle Worker, the Broadway-bound account of Helen Keller’s early years (TIME, Oct. 5). And in The Miracle Worker, Patty’s achievement is even more astonishing than it was in Zone.

Early Flop. Patty’s polish, poise and professional stagecraft are the product of three brief years of TV and movies. “Patty,” says her overawed mother, “was always adept at dressing up and pretending,” but she never thought about acting until she was all of six years old. Her older brother Raymond (then 13) was appearing in occasional television shows, and Patty badgered Ray’s agent into giving her an audition. The inflections she learned on the Manhattan streets where she grew up held her back for a few months. But before long she was doing TV commercials and playing some small parts on such dramatic shows as the U.S. Steel Hour. (On the Armstrong show about the liner Andrea Doria, Patty was the child tossed overboard by her mother.) Soon Patty had worked up to a leading part and rave notices for her performance in The Prince and the Pauper.

A stint on the $64,000 Challenge, answering questions about popular music earned Patty a $32,000 tie with another young actor: Eddie (Music Man) Hodges. By the time The Miracle Worker was ready for casting this summer, Patty had behind her some big TV specials, among them Wuthering Heights and Swiss Family Robinson, and half a dozen Hollywood movies (including The Goddess and Country Music).

What Would You Say? Patty worked hard to get ready for her tryout. boned up on Helen Keller’s early problems. When she appeared for her audition, she was thoroughly prepared. “What would you say if you were Helen Keller?” asked Director Arthur Penn. Answered Patty with calm assurance: “I wouldn’t say anything. I couldn’t talk.”

These days, during the show’s Boston tryout, the entire adult company of The Miracle Worker treats Patty as their professional peer. They hardly remember her age until, at her mother’s insistence, she knocks off like a good little girl for her afternoon nap.