Academy Award-winning actress Patty Duke won an Oscar when she reprised her stage portrayal of Helen Keller in the 1962 film, "The Miracle Worker." She has starred in innumerable movies for television and in the hit series, "The Patty Duke Show" (the first season was just released on DVD). Ms. Duke has also won three Emmys (ten nominations), two Golden Globes and a People's Choice Award. She is the author of two best selling books, "Call Me Anna" and "A Brilliant Madness: Living With Manic Depression Illness." Ms. Duke recently appeared on stage in Follies and Gypsy and on Broadway in Oklahoma!. She was born in the New York borough of Queens, is a graduate of the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women, and was the first female president of the Screen Actors Guild.

How did you come to the role of Madame Morrible?

I answered the phone one day and it was my agent who said he'd gotten a call from the Wicked people and they want to know if you want to play Madame Morrible. And I said, yes! when? I didn't even ask where.

What have you found to be the most challenging aspect of the role? And the most enjoyable?

It is a very complex play and in developing the characters, there is an extraordinary amount of subtext and actors use subtext to find confidence in their characters but they also use it in a psychoanalytical way. That's been a challenge but fun. Always for me being cast in a musical means I have to sing and I'm not very confident about doing that. I seem to be doing okay. No one has thrown any rotten apples at me but it isn't the old shoe that acting is. The most enjoyable part is working with these young women, Kendra and Teal, their talent is off this planet. Their skill, which doesn't always go hand in hand but they both have that, too. And, their basic goodness makes it fun coming to work, makes it fun getting to know them and of course their main job is to keep me young.

Do you have a specific warm up routine or ritual?

I always tuck my husband's dog tags from the army into my bosom. There aren't rituals that I plan but there are rituals that I develop such as you tend to say hello or goodbye to the same person, at the same place at the same time before every performance. Little things like that. I am very ritualistic about my props, the Grimmerie being the main one. And, I have to have it on the right page — it doesn't matter to anybody else but it really shakes me. I've had to change some bad habits in order to do my job properly here. And that has to do with what time I eat, what I eat, it's not just about what you do when you come to the theatre, it has to do with what you do all day long.

How long does it take to get into hair and makeup to be transformed into Morrible?

Joe Dulude has gotten make up down to 20 minutes for me. And, when you see the extent of my makeup, that's really no time at all. The wigs are all ready set but the prep to put on the wig — pin curling your hair and the stocking that you put on that makes you look absolutely hideous, that takes another 15 to 20 minutes. For me, I need to be in the theatre an hour and a half before curtain.

Besides Wicked, what are favorite musicals and why?

My Fair Lady, what's not to love. I loved the stage version with Julie Andrews and the film with Audrey Hepburn. And, Oklahoma!, which I got to do on Broadway in 2003, the role of Aunt Eller. The music is, well, when that orchestra starts up, it is absolutely thrilling.

What stage role, past or present, would you like to inhabit and why?

I would love someday, and the days are getting shorter for me, but I have never done Shakespeare. I have never had the confidence in myself and in my ability to understand the language but as I get older I figure, what the heck, one of these days I'm just going to hold my hose and jump in.

When you have down time, what are your guilty pleasures?

My guilty pleasures are hotdogs. In my old series, the lyrics said "a hot dog makes her lose control" I do and I am very careful where I eat my hotdogs! Mostly, it's hanging out with my husband and it doesn't matter where. We are so comfortable with each other yet we haven't let it get boring and we've been married now 23 1/2 years.

What are your enjoying the most about San Francisco? 

It's always the people. Certainly there are some characters outside the theatre and I enjoy talking to them. The food ain't bad either! I have yet to go touring. My husband and I do drive around to look at the buildings, the 1880s architecture but I have not done any of the touristy things and I have nothing against the touristy things, so I know we'll go. It just has taken me quite a while to feel competent in this role.

What advice would you give young, aspiring performers?

Get your education, no matter what career path you choose. I also, in my later years, have been saying, have a fall back position. I don't want to rain on anybody's parade but I worry, particularly in this economy, that young people leaving college with only a career of acting in mind could fall on pretty hard times.

What do you think is important, culturally, about live performance?

It is a communion, not unlike a religious ceremony in my opinion, between those people out there in the seeming darkness and us. There's an electricity and you just can't get the same feeling from films.

To learn more about Patty Duke, click here. For more info about the DVD release of The Patty Duke show, click here.

For more on Wicked, click here.

Show photos: Joan Marcus
Head shot courtesy of Patty Duke

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