Patty Duke's first major starring role was playing Helen Keller (with Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan) in the Broadway play The Miracle Worker, which ran for nearly two years (October, 1959 - July, 1961).
Midway through the production run, her name was placed above the title on the marquee. The play was subsequently made into a 1962 film, for which Duke received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. At 16, Duke was the youngest person at that time to receive an Academy Award in a competitive category.
She went on to have tremendous success in both stage and film, and will return to television once again in the upcoming season of Hawaii Five-O, playing "an Alzheimer's-afflicted mother of a murder victim. When the Five-0 team go to deliver the notification, they learn her condition has her believing that her adult son is actually still a child. For a while, the team shields her from the news, but ultimately she must confront her devastating loss," according to Entertainment Weekly.
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