Goodbye to Patty Duke and Ken Howard

[miliosr]

Actors Patty Duke and Ken Howard both died in recent days.

Duke had a long and varied career in film, television and music but her lasting fame has come from the 1967 campfest Valley of the Dolls, in which she overacted up a storm as the drug-addled Neely O'Hara ("Sure I take dolls. I've got to get up in the morning and sparkle, Neely, sparkle!"). For a long time after the film's release, Duke had only negative things to say about Valley of the Dolls. But, toward the end of her life, she softened and she began to appreciate the warm feelings fans have for that movie.

Howard also had a long and varied career in film, television and theater but he's perhaps best remembered as the coach in the 1970s TV program The White Shadow. I will always think of him, though, as the Colby family attorney on the 1980s-era Dynasty spinoff, The Colbys.

[dirac]

"Ted Casablanca is NOT a fag. And I'm the dame who can prove it!"

Duke almost wound up as a cautionary tale about the bad things that happen to child actors, but she survived. She was great in "The Miracle Worker."

I hadn't heard about Ken Howard. He was a wonderful Thomas Jefferson in 1776 and had a fine late turn in "Michael Clayton."

Howard’s most significant recent film role came in Tony Gilroy’s 2007 thriller “Michael Clayton,” starring George Clooney as a fixer for a top law firm; Howard played the ruthless CEO of the corporation Clooney’s firm is representing in a multimillion-dollar class action lawsuit who employs the even more ruthless attorney played in the film by Tilda Swinton.

I always liked The Colbys. I wish that one would turn up again.

[miliosr]

There are so many great lines from Valley of the Dolls that it's almost hard to pick one but my favorite would have to be Helen's line to Neely in the ladies' room:

"They drummed you right out of Hollywood. So, you come crawling back to Broadway. Well Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope!"

Here's a clip of Duke talking about working with Judy Garland on the set of Valley of the Dolls before the studio fired her and replaced her with Susan Hayward:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N9AAnnxpS8

I was surprised to find out that Ken Howard was only 71 when he died. I would have pegged him as being at least 10 years older. That came from The Colbys, where I thought he had to have been in his early-to-mid-50s but was really only in his early 40s. He "played" much older than he really was. (It didn't help that all of the ages on that show were so screwed up. Stephanie Beacham (as Sable) was supposed to be playing a woman in her mid-50s with three twentysomething children but was only in her mid-30s. Her daughter on the show, Tracy Scoggins, was actually only about a half dozen years younger than Beacham!)

In any event, Shout! Factory released the entire series on DVD in 2015.