Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke (36 page)

After we were married, as a sign of love and commitment I added Astin to my professional name. It was something I knew John would like and I liked it too. It brought a certain maturity to the name I wanted to establish. And though I’ve been accused of using it because it starts with A and would help me for billing purposes (I swear, I’ve actually heard that!), the simple truth is I was proud to have chosen to be married to him, and proud of his choosing me, and I wanted to show it.

John had another impact on my name, and my identity, that was much more long-lasting and profound. It began in the earliest days of our relationship, when we were still undercover—and under the covers. We used code names in leaving messages for each other; his was Jack Allen, and mine was “Sally, Mr. Riviera’s secretary,” which John commemorated
by getting me about a dozen miniature “Sally” license plates from all over the country.

“You’re not a ‘Sally,’ ” John said to me casually one day when this had been going on for a while. “And you’re not a ‘Patty’ either. What are you?”

“No,” I said, smiling. “I’m an ‘Anna.’ My name’s Anna.”

“Well,” he said. “Why don’t we call you Anna? That’s your name.”

My initial reaction to that was one of sheer delight mixed with nervousness. I felt I was ready to be Anna, to reclaim myself, but as much as I loved the idea, I was afraid to get too attached to the name, afraid it would last a bit, as it had with Harry, but never stick. At first I felt ludicrous introducing myself as Anna, but John was so dedicated to it, he didn’t merely philosophize or talk about what ought to be, he acted. In situations in which the two of us were working together, which happened frequently, he never called me anything but Anna, and that helped people get used to it. It was much tougher when I worked without him; then I got called every name under the sun, because no one could quite remember what they were supposed to call me, but even there Anna won out.

Because of what I’d been through with the Rosses, being Anna again was much more than a superficial change, it symbolized what felt like the rebirth of the core of my soul. Working from the outside in, my new/old name became a powerful emotional tool. It wasn’t just that I stood taller around the house because I no longer had a babyish name; I could feel, almost day by day, the sensation of this person who was myself coming back to life after all those years. John was responsible for giving me the freedom not only to use the name Anna but to be Anna as well, which was truly a lifelong gift.

For a while, during the transition period, John would revert to my old name when he was angry and wanted to hurt me. Then it was, “Okay, Patty Duke, if that’s what you think,” which was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. I’m not so sensitive about Patty anymore, however. My names are part of me and I them; all of them are okay now. Patty may not be my favorite, it doesn’t feel like me anymore,
but because it symbolizes a large part of my life that I’m no longer trying to reject, I don’t shudder anymore when a stranger calls me Patty in a shopping mall. I turn around comfortably and say hello. That’s my name for that minute, and I’m at ease with that because I know it’s only for that minute; I’m able now to be myself whenever and wherever I need to.

A
fter Mackie was born, John’s three sons, twelve-year-old David, eleven-year-old Alan, and eight-year-old Tom came to live with us, and my honeymoon with John came to an abrupt end. It had always been rough when the kids stayed over on weekends, and I was simply not equipped for their presence full-time. I remember very few major arguments with John until they came, and then we argued all the time about how to raise them. People have babies and they learn about children as they go. You don’t, when you’re twenty-four, take on a kid who’s twelve. Especially when you’ve had the retarded development that I had, and when the twelve-year-old is seriously rebellious and acting out all over the place.

The problems with David had started even before Mackie was born. He was an unhappy kid and Suzanne was having a bad time with him; like me, she was a very volatile person with limited patience. Even before John and I were married she told him that she couldn’t deal with David, that we had to take him. So we did, and the good part of me wanted to help this kid, to be the Great All-American Heroine. The competitive part wanted to be a better mother than Suzie. But David and I did not get along; we never managed to get on the same wavelength. For a while one of us would be kind
and the other would be difficult, and then we’d switch roles. John and I kept David for six months, and then he decided he wanted to go back and live with his mother, which was devastating to me.

Then, after Mackie was born, came the real crisis. There are many versions of the story, and for all I know the kids may well have provoked her, but the upshot was that one day Suzanne told them to go live with their father. They called, and we ran to get them; we hardly had a choice. There was great excitement about whether she would show up at our house and create a scene, but, in fact, with very few exceptions, she had no contact with the kids until quite recently. Suzanne must have been in terrible pain, and though I don’t approve of her actions, I understand now, as I didn’t then, the kind of spiritual and emotional fatigue and depression that leads to such behavior.

The major contact we had with Suzanne was in 1974, when it was determined that I would adopt the boys and she decided she wanted to fight it. The kids brought up the idea before I did. They had all kinds of quirky little emotional reasons like wanting to write mother instead of stepmother on forms at school. I thought it would make them feel more secure, and both John and I wanted it because in the event something happened to him, at that time I had no legal standing in regard to these three children—I would’ve been unable to retain custody. But I had no desire to alienate the kids further from their mother, so it was made very clear to the boys what this was all about, that it had to be their choice, and no one would be pressuring them to do anything.

Adoption day was very difficult for everyone, initially because it was the first time the three boys had seen their mother in a long time. Suzie, who’s a very attractive woman, looked strained, even distraught. First the boys went in individually to the judge’s chambers, and then Suzie and I were called in while everyone else waited outside. And she proceeded to be the worst witness she could possibly have been for herself; I hated to see this poor woman in that kind of misery. I was so broken up that my lawyer, Mitchell Dawson, who treats me like an equal, not like a daughter,
told me if I didn’t pull myself together, I was going to have to leave the courtroom.

It was a few months before we heard that my petition to adopt had been approved. It was great to get the news. It felt like a milestone, a chance for a new beginning. I hoped maybe all the screaming and ranting and raving that had gone on between the kids and their mother wouldn’t be repeated with me, but it pains me to confess I was unable to handle the situation. The frustration level was so great, I would scream my brains out at them. I would try to whack David, but he was too fast for me. It was everything I swore my life would never be if I had children. My God, the years of misery that went on in that house while publicly we were a perfect couple with an adorable family!

For one thing, I hated our house. It’s very pretty now, but then it looked like Tobacco Road or a movie set that had been aged to resemble a deteriorating building. We lived in a pigsty, the accumulated mess of dogs and cats and birds and rats in cages, not to mention five kids. My reaction followed cycles, and at certain points I’d try to be very detached and say, “Okay, fine, the hell with it. I don’t have to clean it up, I don’t have to yell about it.” Everyone thought that was wonderful, of course, but then I’d explode again, I’d scream, “Who can live in this mess?”

If I’d thought about my position as a stepparent more realistically, it might have made things a whole lot easier. From the moment the kids arrived, I assumed I was going to feel exactly the same about them as I did about Sean and Mack. I thought it was a crime if I didn’t. John’s attitude was, “Isn’t it wonderful that she loves them all the same? They’re all brothers, they’re all sons,” but it simply wasn’t true and trying to make believe it was true was an enormous burden on me and eventually on everyone. If I’d treated them as I felt toward them, which is what all the experts now tell you to do, it would have been so much more honest, and a lot of the games that developed between us never would have gotten started.

A crucial element in all this was that because I loved John and he loved me I wanted to do everything I could to please him, I wanted to be the good little wife. Taking the
children in was what he wanted, so I wanted it too. As for adopting them, how could that be anything but pleasing to a man who says, “The most important thing is that if I die, you will raise them.”

So I’d try and do things his way. Oh, how I tried to be reasonable and understanding and gentle and kind and rational—for the first fifty-six times I’d ask them to do something. Then, at the fifty-seventh time, I’d scream my bloody lungs out. And that’s when John would walk in the door and say, “Now, Anna, you’re supposed to be the adult here. There’s nothing wrong with the children; it’s you.” And then, of course, the heat would be off the kids because John and I would get into an argument that would last till morning.

What you have to understand is that John had the capacity to tune things out to such a degree that it became a family joke. You could talk to him for ten minutes and then come back an hour later and say, “What do you think about what I asked you?” and he’d have no recollection that you had even been in the room. He did that with the children too. Of course he was patient with the kids. He didn’t hear them!

When David and Alan made and set off genuine Molotov cocktails in the backyard, for instance, the extent of John’s reaction was: “Boys, I don’t think that’s something you should be doing.” I could see their eyes go blank, the way one actor sees another actor’s go blank when he doesn’t know the next line. They knew if they sat there long enough, John would get finished umming and aahing and pausing and rationalizing and they’d be set free. Which is exactly what always happened.

Those kids never knew the meaning of limits, and it hurt them. When they started using marijuana, I said, “They’re doing drugs,” and John would answer, “No, they’re not. I asked them and they told me they weren’t.” I would persist, but he would flat out refuse to believe me over the boys. He would say, “Why don’t you like David?” He forgot I was closer to their age than I was to his, and even though I had had a very different childhood, I could see exactly what they were doing.

David left the house when he was eighteen. It was one of the worst times I’ve ever been involved in, but I felt his leaving was the best thing. I knew staying wasn’t doing him any good. He’d come in at two in the morning with six or eight of his friends, waking up the little ones, maybe taking a dozen steaks out of the freezer and cooking dinner in the middle of the night. But more than any specific incidents, it was the way David manipulated John and me into hassles that I couldn’t bear anymore. John begged me not to do to David what his other mother already had, and the realization that I was doing that broke my heart, but finally I said, “Yes, I am. Because now I know how she feels.”

Al, the next oldest, left without being asked; he didn’t want to be obligated to us and chose to live on his own. He’s a follower of Swami Muktananda, bright and sunny and happy as a clam. I have great admiration for Al; he’s fully self-supporting, he owes nothing to anyone. In fact, my relationship with all three of the boys, David and Tom as well as Al, has evolved so that it is now the best it’s ever been. We’re in touch often, and all the feelings between us are richer and more accepting. They’re either working or in school, they have ambition and initiative and goodness, and they’re doing fine. I just wish I could have made the road easier for them. I did not.

I
was getting into my car outside a restaurant called The Bistro in Beverly Hills one afternoon near the end of 1970 when a man came up and started to talk to me. He said his name was Joe Stich, and I guessed he wanted a date, but somehow we started talking business talk and he gave me his card. And when I had a breakup with my manager, David Licht, I gave him a call. He and a guy named Bob Irwin (which turned out to be an alias) came to see me and convinced me they should be my business managers.

What I knew about business could fit on the head of a pin, and in those days I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to realize that an attempted pickup in a restaurant parking lot is not the best recommendation for someone who is going to be given carte blanche to handle your money. I would sign anything these guys put in front of me. I just didn’t want to be bothered by what I felt were unimportant details.

In early 1972, when John and I were together but unmarried, I was on location in Duluth shooting a scary film called
You’ll Like My Mother
about a young pregnant girl who was in all kinds of jeopardy. I got sick with what turned out to be a kidney infection, but the production company thought I was malingering so they called Irwin, my business manager,
who told them—and me—that in his opinion, John was the real problem, that he was jealous of the working relationship I had with Irwin and was causing me unnecessary grief. “It’s all his fault, look what he’s doing to you,” Irwin said. “If you weren’t taking care of John’s kid David as well as Sean, you wouldn’t be exhausted all the time.” I happened to be going through a period of doubt about my relationship with John, and here was an ally saying, “See? See? Poor thing, look what he’s doing to you.” The reason Irwin attacked John so roundly, I later found out, was that John had become suspicious of how he and Stich were handling, or mishandling, my finances and had started to snoop around. Irwin retaliated by trying to poison my mind against John. Unfortunately, I bought it, hook, line, and sinker.