Get A First Look At Sunday Morning With Sandy Duncan - Star of PETER PAN and So Much More

This morning's CBS Sunday Morning highlighted famous icon Sandy Duncan. She shared key details about her rise to fame as well as her struggles with loss of vision and public rumors of her glass eye.

A household name of the 1970s, Sandy Duncan starred in family comedies like "$1,000,000 Duck," earned an Emmy nomination in "Roots," was featured in "Scooby-Doo," and danced with the Muppets.

"I mean this as high praise: you were kind of made for The Muppets," said correspondent Mo Rocca.

"I was!" Duncan replied. "I related more to them than a lot of actors I've ever worked with."

Sandy Duncan captivated audiences in the 1979 revival of "Peter Pan," in 554 performances. "I felt joy every time I did this," she said. "I don't think I had a bad show." In the interview video see her crow almost fifty years later. She talked about her upbringing in Texas and her big move to New York City to make it big.

"I moved into this place called the Rehearsal Club, which was just for young women. It was $32 a week. I started getting work right away, which is lucky, because it's not always the case. And also, I couldn't audition. Never could, I still can't. I stink."

Rocca asked, "The impression of you as being perpetually cheerful, did that ever irritate you?"

"Yes! of course it did, because it's far from the truth. Don will tell you that!" she laughed.

Dancer and choreographer Don Correia is Duncan's husband and lifelong dance partner. They have two sons and live in Connecticut.

When Sandy Duncan was 24, she was cast in Funny Face on CBS. Three months before wrapping the first season, Duncan was experiencing some painful symptoms: "I would get these hideous headaches that I could barely function. And then my eye started getting like I had Vaseline over one of my eyes. And they kept saying it was nerves, because it's my first series. And I kept going, 'No, I'm hyper. But I'm not nervous.'"

After visiting several doctors she found her answer saying "And they found it in the surgery, that there was this big tumor that was attached to the orbit of my eye. They severed the optic nerve. And that's why I have no vision." This experience left Sandy with no vision at all in her left eye.

Everyone thought she wore a prosthetic eye after this but in her program bio for a 2008 production of "No, No, Nanette," she adds "Duncan does not have a glass eye. But she did lose her depth perception."

It is wild to think how Duncan's most famous role of Peter Pan occurred after this life-altering surgery. Though she had no vision in her left eye, New York Times theater critic Walter Kerr described how the wires seemed to disappear when Duncan took flight: "She just lets go of gravity, gracefully and gleefully, and lets the mechanical equipment catch up as best it can."

From this interview you can get a glimpse into the life of The Boy Who Never Grows Up, as well as discover the lengthy career of a 1970s legend.