Patty Duke

After Patty Duke's recent death, I went to Google to see if there were any on screen spanking from the Patty Duke Show...

I didn't find any of them, but I did discover a reason why Patty was never spanking on that show - she had no spanking clause in her contract. She had suffered abuse before (at home, and that scene in The Miracle Worker wasn't faked) and wanted to make sure that her show would be a safe place for her.

Later she revealed that she had been bi-polar (a diagnosis that didn't exist when she had some of her worse episodes - she wasn't diagnosed until she was in her 30s) and had taken "discipline" too far with her sons.

The page at https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/21620-patty-duke-help-abusive-or-neglect ful-parents-keep-their-kids gives some details about it...

Sigh... It's always disappointing to be reminded that those beautiful people on that entertain us are as human and flawed as the rest of us.

That explains quite a bit. Given the time the show was on (and the era it was set in) and the two rather mischievous characters she played, as well as their ages, appropriate punishments, perhaps including spankings, wouldn't be thought of as all that unusual. She apparently had a truly awful, deprived (emotionally at least) childhood, as well as an undiagnosed and untreated mental illness. Certainly the "discipline" we discuss on this blog is all imaginary, despite some very realistic imagery and writing, as well as a lot of "if only" or "I wish" scenarios (or fantasies really) are entirely harmless, even those that are presented as true or "it really happened" stuff, as there's no way to really verify that information. I can certainly see why she had a "no spanking" clause in her contract.

On another note, she was a very talented actress and contributed a lot to her chosen profession, including some very memorable characters. She will be missed.

It did not stop them from mentioning spanking on the show. But, I, too, agree that it was better for her to have that put into her contract. Life is too real without adding to someone's personal pain for the purposes of a television show.

I watched her show on a regular basis and was unaware of any of this. Very informative.
She was a fine singer as well. She and Leslie Gore were favorites.
Rich and famous is not always as it appears.

It's funny. As a kid I remember being more attracted to the more subdued cousin from overseas though of course I knew it was the same girl.

Exactly. That's why probably why she insisted on that clause. She knew that the writers would want to include "consequences" for her actions and didn't want to be spanked on the job.


That distinction between those two characters is a tribute to her talented acting skills.