Oscar-Winning Actress Patty Duke Dies At 69

Academy Award winner, and television actress Patty Duke is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday, August 17, 2004, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. Duke's latest project is "Murder With... Academy Award winner, and television actress Patty Duke is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Tuesday, August 17, 2004, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. Duke's latest project is "Murder Without Conviction," premiering Sunday, Sept. 5, on the Hallmark Channel. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) MORE LESS
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NEW YORK (AP) — Patty Duke, who won an Oscar as a teen for “The Miracle Worker” and maintained a long and successful career throughout her life while battling personal demons, has died at the age of 69.

Duke’s agent, Mitchell Stubbs, says the actress died early Tuesday morning of sepsis from a ruptured intestine. She died in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, according to Teri Weigel, the publicist for her son, actor Sean Astin.

Duke, born Anna Marie Pearce, followed on her early success playing the young Helen Keller with a popular sitcom, “The Patty Duke Show,” which aired for three seasons in the mid-1960s. She played dual roles under an unconventional premise: identical cousins living in Brooklyn Heights, New York.

In 2015, she played twin roles again: as a pair of grandmas on an episode of “Liv and Maddie,” a series on the Disney Channel.

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This story has been corrected to show that the characters are identical cousins, not twins.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  1. Regular Patty Duke show watcher as a kid, loved it, and still see reruns on occasion. But of course her best work was on Broadway and the Cinema as Helen Keller, just brilliant. Academy Award at 16.

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