Bob Collins
The last time Patty Duke was in Duluth, she had a baby.
It was in a movie — You’ll Like My Mother — in 1972 in which a pregnant Francesca, played by Duke, arrives from Los Angeles to meet her late husband’s mother in Duluth. Eventually, someone gets stabbed.
Whatever happened to the baby in the movie?
Yesterday, Duke and the “baby” — Laura Adams — met again, if only via Skype, the Duluth News Tribune reports.
“Look at you,” Duke said to Laura Adams, remembering the blue eyes she adored 42 years ago. “It’s about time we hooked up.”
And then came some kismet. It turns out that Adams and Duke once lived not far from each other in Idaho. Adams moved to Seattle recently to complete a degree to eventually become a mental health practitioner.
“I can’t tell you how that warms my heart,” Duke said. The actress has been speaking about taking mental illness out of the shadows since revealing in 1982 that she had a bipolar disorder. She is speaking at a forum tonight on mental health issues, especially on getting more government funding to make treatment more accessible.
“God bless you,” Duke said to Adams. “We need you so badly.”
After living in Idaho and Alaska, Adams said she’s seen first-hand the need for psychiatric care in the more rural parts of the country.
“I knew I was looking at a baby who was going to do some good,” Duke said.
Patty Duke is in Duluth for a film festival.
