# Patty Duke dead at 69 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2016, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539 "2016-03-29T17:18:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/41 "2016-03-30T23:07:06Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > How is that not known? They used to show both fathers on the phone with each other all the time, both played by William Shallert. Yes, and not just on the phone. Martin’s brother visited him in Brooklyn at least a couple of times. They used the same special effects that allowed Patty Duke to play both Patty and Cathy in the same scene with Shallert appearing as Martin and his brother Kenneth. With Kenneth wearing a mustache IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/42 "2016-03-30T23:08:26Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > I saw her on some gameshow alongside her son Mackenzie Astin, and it kinda blew my mind that she was the mother of Andy from Facts of Life. If I’d known then that she was also the mother of Mikey from the Goonies, AND that Gomez Addams was their father (or “father” as the case may be) I might never have recovered. > > Shame Nick at Night turned to garbage and doesn’t show old B&W stuff like her show any more. It’s on MeTV on weekday mornings. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/43 "2016-03-31T00:32:54Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > There is also the identical cousin Betsy from Chattanooga to worry about. > > ["The Patty Duke Show" The Perfect Hostess (TV Episode 1965) - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0671931/) [And she looked very cute doing so.](http://www.sitcomsonline.com/photopost/data/786/patty.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/44 "2016-03-31T00:57:08Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > How is that not known? They used to show both fathers on the phone with each other all the time, both played by William Shallert. Schoolers is still alive and occasionally acts. His last IMDb credit was 2 years ago, but he was 92 at the time. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/45 "2016-03-31T02:23:43Z")
> [@White SIFL](#): > > Boo - fucking - hoo. I wish I had it so badly. > [@terentii](#): > > **Fun Fact:** It was established in the unaired pilot (set in San Francisco) that Patty and Cathy were identical cousins because their fathers were twin brothers.\* > > \*I wondered about this for fifty years before I finally learned why! Identical cousins happen. My grandmother has an identical cousin, I kid you not. You can tell them apart because they are twenty-five years apart in age, but if you look at photos of them at the same age, they look EXACTLY like. Same hair, same face, same build, same height. It’s a littler freaky. Cousin lives in Slovakia, so I didn’t meet her until I was 18, but it blew me away. She has a daughter who looks remarkably like one of my cousins (my grandmother’s granddaughter). Their parents are an ordinary brother and sister who were 17 years apart in age-- one came to the US and one did not. Their other parents were not related at all, other than everyone was a Slovak Jew, so probably all 4th cousins or something. But yeah, Patty and Cathy are possible. I mean, I’m sure that if you looked at my grandmother’s DNA, and her cousins, they wouldn’t look like identical twins-- they probably wouldn’t even look like anything but what they were: ordinary cousins. It’s just a funny coincidence. My brother looks a lot like pictures of my grandfather, but not to the point of being twins. They look like brothers, though. I look more like my father’s brother’s kids than I look like my own brother, and my one cousin who is close to my age and I were constantly asked if we were fraternal twins. She has green eyes and I have brown eyes, and she is taller (and now thinner), but we do look quite a bit alike. Nothing like my grandmother and her cousin, though. Totally cast from the same mold. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/46 "2016-03-31T13:20:40Z")
In my family there are two _second_ cousins that are remarkably alike. I have a pic of them in profile facing each other. They had similar glasses and dressed alike. (Not planned.) TV is real life, sheeple! ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/47 "2016-03-31T20:31:51Z")
King George V and his cousin Tsar Nicholas II looked very similar. [https://www.google.com/search?q=george+v+nicholas+ii&rlz=1C1TSNF\_enUS440&tbm=isch&imgil=CRtGc5B6SNCWwM%253A%253B8Wb-D7JrWW\_lbM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.pinterest.com%25252Fpin%25252F156992736982879661%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=CRtGc5B6SNCWwM%253A%252C8Wb-D7JrWW\_lbM%252C\_&usg=\_\_go4Mhd8\_H63FQ1ASbgjDgcBl8gU%3D&biw=1600&bih=769&ved=0ahUKEwja0eal4uvLAhVEGR4KHeDDBNcQyjcILQ&ei=EYn9VpqFCMSyeOCHk7gN#imgrc=CRtGc5B6SNCWwM%3A](https://www.google.com/search?q=george+v+nicholas+ii&rlz=1C1TSNF_enUS440&tbm=isch&imgil=CRtGc5B6SNCWwM%253A%253B8Wb-D7JrWW_lbM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.pinterest.com%25252Fpin%25252F156992736982879661%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=CRtGc5B6SNCWwM%253A%252C8Wb-D7JrWW_lbM%252C_&usg=__go4Mhd8_H63FQ1ASbgjDgcBl8gU%3D&biw=1600&bih=769&ved=0ahUKEwja0eal4uvLAhVEGR4KHeDDBNcQyjcILQ&ei=EYn9VpqFCMSyeOCHk7gN#imgrc=CRtGc5B6SNCWwM%3A) ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/48 "2016-03-31T20:56:10Z")
[William Schallert remembers Patty Duke.](http://www.closerweekly.com/posts/william-schallert-patty-duke-death-exclusive-95414) > [@](#): > > “When I think of her, she’s family as far as I’m concerned. We had a very close relationship. Whenever I saw her it was always like greeting one of my kids,” William tells Closer. > > “She just had a wonderful quality and I got to know her over the years and she was admirable in a lot of ways. She really did her best to raise her own kids and she certainly had very little help in her own life to do that, but she was very mature and she did a lot of growing up very fast. People take that kind of thing for granted far too easily, and she doesn’t get the credit she deserves for that." ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/49 "2016-03-31T22:59:00Z")
Which of the twins died? Cathy or Patty? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/50 "2016-04-02T15:22:59Z")
I highly recommend her books [Call Me Anna and Living With Madness](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=patty+duke&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Apatty+duke). However, when DNA testing revealed that Michael Tell was her son Sean’s genetic father, Duke flatly denied sleeping with him, and said the tests must be wrong. She claim her marriage to Tell was never consummated, and got an annulment based on that idea. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/51 "2016-04-04T15:38:25Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] However, when DNA testing revealed that Michael Tell was her son Sean’s genetic father, Duke flatly denied sleeping with him, and said the tests must be wrong. She claim her marriage to Tell was never consummated, and got an annulment based on that idea. [/QUOTE] Since Tell consented to the test and accepted paternity of (the grown) Sean Astin, I’m assuming that he has a memory of it, and Sean makes it clear he believes that Tell is his biological father (though John Astin is the man he regards as his Father). I’ve never heard his statement, though. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/52 "2016-04-08T12:08:02Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > I highly recommend her books [Call Me Anna and Living With Madness](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=patty+duke&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Apatty+duke). > > However, when DNA testing revealed that Michael Tell was her son Sean’s genetic father, Duke flatly denied sleeping with him, and said the tests must be wrong. She claim her marriage to Tell was never consummated, and got an annulment based on that idea. Well, she did call her book 'Living with Madness." ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/53 "2016-04-08T23:51:01Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > It’s on MeTV on weekday mornings. That’s great, but doesn’t change the fact that Nick turned to crap. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539/54 "2016-04-08T23:54:46Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > In my family there are two _second_ cousins that are remarkably alike. I have a pic of them in profile facing each other. They had similar glasses and dressed alike. (Not planned.) > > TV is real life, sheeple! I have a third cousin that looks so shockingly like my first cousin (who is also third cousins with her) that when my uncle (the first cousin’s father) saw the third cousin for the first time (since she was a small child anyway), he had to do a double take. Only difference is the third cousin is like 15 or more years younger. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patty-duke-dead-at-69/750539.md?page=2)