Many of the previous comments and reviews of the film version of the"The Miracle Worker" have detailed the amazing story of Helen Keller (1890-1968)----a child born with normal vision and hearing who became blind and deaf at nineteen months of age due to a tragic illness. Annie Sullivan rescued this remarkable child from a life of virtual isolation. As a result, Helen became an honor graduate of Radcliffe College (1904), a world famous author-lecturer and a greatly admired inspirational role model for the disabled.
This story is best known to us through the play and film---both starring Anne Bancroft as Annie and Patty Duke as Helen.
The play won the Tony Award for the best play of the year in the 1959-1960 season (running for 719 performances), and Bancroft received the best actress Tony Award for her leading role. The play garnered two other Tony Awards-----including best director for Arthur Penn.
The film was similarly honored with Oscars to Bancroft (best actress) and Duke (best supporting actress) for 1962. They reprised their earlier stage roles. It also received Oscar nominations for Penn (best director) and William Gibson (best adapted screenplay).
But lest we forget----the very first presentation of the Helen Keller story in a visual medium came on Feb. 7, 1957. It was the 19th episode during the first season of Playhouse 90----one of the greatest gems of the Golden Age of Television. This is where the Gibson-Penn collaboration first began. It had a different cast then---Teresa Wright played Annie and Patty McCormack was Helen. McCormack was then 11 years of age when she played the considerably younger real Helen, whereas Duke was almost 13 when she first appeared in the play. The Playhouse 90 version was introduced by Mickey Rooney, who pointed out that this was an original story by Gibson that had never been seen before. Wright received an Emmy Award best actress nomination but lost out to Polly Bergen in the Playhouse 90 broadcast of "The Helen Morgan Story."
I had the good fortune to be in New York City (pre-Covid-19) and visited the remarkable Paley Center for Media on West 52nd Street---one of the city's truly outstanding destinations. Among its many archival treasures is the Playhouse 90 "The Miracle Worker." I saw it again after a gap of over 50 years, and would like to offer a few comments about it.
In my opinion, Wright's portrayal of Annie surpassed Bancroft's. Wright projected an impressive young woman who also had warmth and humor. She made Annie a believable person with real strengths and weaknesses. Bancroft's performance always seemed structured, edgy and essentially an actor's creation rather than a stab at reality---without Wright's humanity and empathy. I always wondered whether Wright was ever offered the opportunity to reprise her role in the play when it was cast. McCormack presented a Helen that occasionally exhibited a mischievous streak in addition to frustration and anger. I don't recall that aspect as clearly in Duke's performance. Also, McCormack was somewhat closer in age to the real Helen when the events of the depicted story actually occurred. Both gave us stunning performances for child actors.
The week following Playhouse 90's "The Miracle Worker," Mickey Rooney starred in its production of Rod Serling's "The Comedian." It won the Emmy Award for 1957's Best Single Program of the Year. "The Miracle Worker" had not even been nominated for this award. Today, nobody remembers "The Comedian." But most everyone knows and admires "The Miracle Worker" in all its versions.
When the world eventually returns to a pre-Covid-19 "normal," check out the Playhouse 90 broadcast at the Paley Center for Media. You will find it to be an experience that is well worth your time. It will provide you with interesting and compelling performances of Annie and Helen that differ in many ways from those most of us are familiar with from the much better known play and film.
