Sean Astin says mother Patty Duke suffered 'terribly' before death

Sean Astin says mother Patty Duke suffered ‘terribly’ before death

Actor Sean Astin puts his arm around his mother, Patty Duke, at the Creative Coalition's 2004 Capitol Hill Spotlight Awards ceremony March 30, 2004, in Washington. Duke died March 29, 2016, in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho.

March 31, 2016 8:50 AM PT

At the time of her passing, Patty Duke was in a tremendous amount of pain, “Entertainment Tonight” has learned via an interview with Duke’s son Sean Astin.

Anna “Patty Duke” Pearce died Tuesday morning at the age of 69 in a Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, hospital where, Astin reports, she was surrounded by family.

“She had been suffering terribly,” Astin said, speaking of the painful battle that Duke had waged against sepsis following a ruptured intestine.

But fighting back through pain, both physical and mental, was nothing new for Duke, who struggled with bipolar disorder for most of her life. Duke turned her disorder, which she preferred to refer to as manic depression because “it sounds like it felt,” into a platform to destigmatize mental illness.

Duke gave much of her adult life over to serving as a mental health advocate.

“The more she opened up, the more she shared of her pain. It is very instructive for people,” Astin said.

In addition to being known for playing identical cousins Patty and Cathy Lane on television’s “The Patty Duke Show,” Duke was best known for her Oscar-winning work as Helen Keller in 1962’s “The Miracle Worker,” also starring Anne Bancroft.

Duke fought her pain until the very end, as consistent in death as she was in life.

“Above all, the way that I think of my mother, the thing that gives me such joy and reverence for her, is that above all else, she was a warrior,” Astin said.

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Patty Duke, 16, poses with her Oscar and her lucky Chihuahua in April 1963.

(R.L. Oliver / Los Angeles Times)

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Barbara Parkins, from left, Lee Grant and Patty Duke, from the 1967 film “Valley of the Dolls,” reunited in New York in 2000 for a screening and discussion of the movie.

(Richard Drew / Associated Press)