She Won The Academy Award At 16
How did she get to be the lucky one with a big show in her name? The year before getting the show, Duke was on top of the world after winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Miracle Worker. The film tells the story of Helen Keller and her blind teacher, Anne Sullivan.
Winning an Academy Award was quite a personal accomplishment too, as she’d had a very rough childhood. From the age of eight she was raised by her managers, a married couple who abused her. John and Ethel Ross plied the young girl with drugs and alcohol, and they and even forced her to change her name to “Patty” (she was born “Anna”) to emulate another successful child star of the day, Patty McCormack.
Knowing how much Duke had to overcome to achieve her success makes it even more shocking how the show ended! We’ll learn more about that later.
