Anyone who grew up watching “The Patty Duke Show” knows “Patty loves to rock and roll, a hot dog makes her lose control.” And now they know that receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame makes the Oscar-winning actress tear up.
An emotional Duke hugged her sons, actors Sean and Mackenzie Astin, at her star’s unveiling Tuesday in front of Hollywood’s landmark Roosevelt Hotel. It was a ceremony Sean Astin called “well-deserved and long overdue.”
Duke, already a Broadway star at 14, won a best supporting actress Oscar at 16 for portraying Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker.” In 1980, she won an Emmy for her portrayal of Keller’s teacher, Annie Sullivan, in the TV movie.
She played identical teenage cousins Patty and Cathy Lane on the ’60s comedy “The Patty Duke Show,” which began each week with a theme song describing the two and noting, “Our Patty loves to rock and roll, a hot dog makes her lose control.”
Duke, 57, also won Emmys for “My Sweet Charlie” and “Captains and the Kings.”
“Her place alongside Hollywood’s legends was cemented long before the actual ground was broken,” Mackenzie Astin said.
Duke, who lives with her husband, Mike Pearce, in Idaho, said she was recently strolling the Walk of Fame with her 7-year-old grandson when she told him she had heard a rumor she might be getting her own star.
“He said, ‘Oh Nana, people will remember you!”’