In the Presence of Greatness: An Actress's Sixty-Year Journey by Patty Duke: book review

In the Presence of Greatness: An Actress's Sixty-Year Journey (2018) is Patty Duke’s third memoir after Call Me Anna (1988) and A Brilliant Madness (1997). In her earlier two memoirs, she writes of her change of name, from Anna (real name) to Patty, as a child actress. She is the youngest actor to win an Oscar (for The Miracle Worker - 1962) and the youngest actor to have her own television series bearing her own name (The Patty Duke Show – 1963-1966 – playing identical twin sisters Cathy and Patty). She also writes of living with manic depression.

In this memoir, Patty Duke (1946-2016) is upbeat and reminiscent of the good times with celebrity friends. There is a short chapter for each person. She begins with Kim Stanley, and writes of Anne Bancroft, Helen Keller, Sir Laurence Olivier, Sammy Davis Jr., Jerry Lewis, Frank Sinatra, the Kennedys, Judy Garland, Al Pacino, Betty White, Melissa Gilbert, Burt Reynolds, Garth Brooks, the cast of The Patty Duke Show, and many, many more.

Duke writes about people chronologically (mostly) as she met them. However, the structure of the book means that readers can skip from one celebrity to another, without having to sift through extraneous text.

There are also mentions of her husbands Harry Falk, Michael Tell (for 13 days), John Astin - Gomez in the TV show The Adamms Family 1964-1966), and Michael Pearce.

Accompanying the text are about 70 photographs from her personal photo collection.

Her writing is candid, seeing people through her own manic depressive stages, and acknowledging how that might have affected the way people viewed her. Hence the style is colloquial, sounding very much like an interview, or a long evening with Patty Duke. It’s quite fascinating.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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