Community Corner
Actress Patty Duke Is Keynote Speaker 6th Annual Connecting With Hope Gala
Actress will speak about career and struggles with bipolar disorder at Laurel View Country Club in Hamden.
Show business legend Patty Duke, who at age 16 was the youngest person to win an Academy Award for her performance as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, will be the keynote speaker at The Connection's Sixth Annual Connecting with Hope Gala, to be held at the Laurel View Country Club in Hamden on Friday, June 6.
An award-winning child star, Ms. Duke rose to fame with her portrayal of Helen Keller in the Broadway play The Miracle Worker. The classic film version made her the youngest person ever to win an Academy Award. Ms. Duke’s success on the small and large screen has spanned six decades. From 1963 to 1968, Ms. Duke played identical cousins on top-rated The Patty Duke Show. In 1967 she played the part of cross-addicted Neely O’Hara in the camp classic Valley of the Dolls, which was a huge box office success and remains a cult favorite. Ms. Duke has appeared in more than 90 TV and theatrical movies and is the second woman ever to be elected president of The Screen Actors Guild.
Ms. Duke struggled for years with drug and alcohol issues, and in 1982 was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Ms. Duke was the first celebrity to go public with her mental health struggles and treatment, and wrote two New York Times bestselling autobiographies that chronicle her struggles with the illness: Call Me Anna and A Brilliant Madness. She has become a vocal advocate for mental health causes.
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Tickets and sponsorships are available by contacting Beth Connor at 860-343-5500, x2125 or at bconnor@theconnectioninc.org. For more event information, visit www.theconnectioninc.org.
Find out what's happening in Hamdenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The Connection is a statewide non-profit human services agency that serves 6,000 children and adults monthly through its behavioral health, community justice, and family support programs. We provide residential and supportive housing programs that provide transitional and permanent housing and intensive case management services for individuals and families, pretrial education for first-time offenders, and work-release programs for individuals who have been incarcerated and who are in the process of reintegrating into the community, and outpatient clinical services.
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