US actress Patty Duke has passed away.
Duke won an Oscar for playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker in 1963.
She was aged 69.
Her representative, Mitchell Stubbs, said she died early on Tuesday of sepsis from a ruptured intestine.
She underwent a heart bypass in 2004.
Stubbs said: “She was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a friend, a mental health advocate and a cultural icon. She will be missed.”
Duke maintained a long and successful career throughout her life.
As well as a best supporting actress Oscar, Duke won an Emmy in 1980 for playing Helen Keller’s teacher in a TV movie version.
Duke also starred in The Patty Duke Show in the 1960s in which she took the roles of “identical” teenage cousins.
She was the mother of actor Sean Astin, who played the hobbit Sam in the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films.
She had “really, really suffered” with her illness, From late last week until early Tuesday morning, “was a really, really, really hard process. It was hard for her, it was hard for the people who love her to help her….” Astin stated.
Duke was a child star, making her first TV appearance at the age of 12.
In The Miracle Worker, 16-year-old Duke played blind and deaf girl Helen Keller whose tutor – played by Anne Bancroft – breaks through her isolation and helps her to communicate.
In her autobiography, Duke revealed that in the 1980s she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
In later life she became a strong advocate for increasing awareness, funding and research for people with mental illness.
She is survived by her husband Michael Pearce, her sons although from previous relationships Sean Astin and Mackenzie Astin and another son whom she adopted with Pearce.
