Patty Duke, Pollyanna, and Me

For no apparent reason, I thought about The Patty Duke Show. The show debuted in 1963 and was about an American and her British cousin who looked identical but had different interests and personalities.

If you are old as dirt (as one friend called herself) like me, you might recall the lyrics to The Patty Duke Show theme song:

Meet Cathy, who's lived most everywhere, 
From Zanzibar to Berkeley Square 
But Patty's only seen the sights 
A girl can see from Brooklyn Heights -
What a crazy pair! 

But they're cousins, 
Identical cousins all the way. 
One pair of matching bookends, 
Different as night and day. 

Where Cathy adores a minuet, 
The Ballets Russes, and crepe Suzette, 
Our Patty loves to rock and roll, 
A hot dog makes her lose control - 
What a wild duet! 

Still, they're cousins, 
Identical cousins and you'll find, 
They laugh alike, they walk alike, 
At times they even talk alike - 

You can lose your mind, 
When cousins are two of a kind. 

source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/thepattydukeshowlyrics.html

Cathy 'adores a minuet' and Patty 'loves to rock and roll'.

The show premiered the summer of 1963 when I turned eleven years old and my family had just moved to Metro Detroit. I was still against rock n' roll music, a prejudice incurred when a friend's older sister played the car radio driving her sister and me to day camp. She sang along to Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Polka Dot Bikini, which I deemed  one of the dumbest songs I had ever heard.

This was, of course, a few years before Louie Louie (which was rumored to be obscene) and Wild Thing,  both of which I also abhorred as trite and silly but were big hits among the other teeny boppers.

I preferred songs that had a melody, sung by vocally accomplished people. Like John Gary, whose 1966 summer The John Gary Show I watched. I even spent my allowance on his LP Catch a Falling Star.

How influenced was I by the television versions of teenagers in The Patty Duke Show? 

I was such a prig in junior high, clinging to my (perceived) high values of only liking classical music and the symphony (which I had seen once in my life), valuing friendship over crushes, and preferring Napoleon Solo over the teenage heartbreaker Illya Kuryakin in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Did Cathy justify my bias?

This got me thinking about other role models I grew up with. Like Hayley Mills. I adored her films, especially the 1960 film Pollyanna.

I was thrilled when Santa brought me a Pollyanna doll for Christmas. She was almost as tall as my eighteen-month-old brother! I loved the movie and later in life read the book several times. The story about a missionary's daughter used to living with cast-offs and finding the cup half-full side of life taught me about the power of finding the good in even cranky people. I was determined to never dislike or hate anyone, an ideal I clung to for a very long time.

Later I enjoyed Mills in other Disney movies, The Moon-Spinners and This Darn Cat.

What role other models did girls have in the 1950s and early 1960s?

I watched The Mickey Mouse Club. I remember Spin and Marty. I couldn't recall any series about girls. I asked my husband, who a few years older than I has a more vivid recall of the show, and he couldn't remember any either. It turns out that there was one in 1958, Annette. I was six years old, so no wonder I don't recall it. It was about a country girl who moves in with citified relatives and has to learn the ropes at her new high school.

Like everyone else my generation, I saw the Disney Princess movies.

Ad for Sleeping Beauty 

Sleeping Beauty came out in 1959 when I was seven. I had a movie tie-in coloring book. And I was given a Sleeping Beauty doll made by Madame Alexander. I took her to show my friend and set the doll down as we played. My dog Pepper had followed me and she chewed up the doll! I was heartbroken. 

As an adult I replaced the dog-mauled Sleeping Beauty doll

As a girl I loved the Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies that were shown on television in the 1950s. I got my own gun and holster set for Christmas when I was three years old! 

In our make-believe play, we neighborhood girls fought over who got to be the cowboy and who had to be Dale Evans. The cowgirls always needed rescuing,--such wimps! Everyone wanted to be a cowboy. Later, I also liked Bat Masterson and had a Bat Masterson cane.

When I wanted to grow up and be a cowboy.

There was The Lone Ranger and Daniel Boone and Zorro and Superman. No shows about female superheroes yet. I did have Wonder Woman comics, thankfully. She was the only superhero comic book character I followed. I liked Brenda Starr comic books, too, especially because she was a reporter. 

There were shows about men or boys and their dogs, like Rin Tin Tin and Lassie and the movie Old Yeller. At least there were two shows with females: My Friend Flicka about a girl and her horse ran for one year, 1956-1957, and Sky King about a pilot rancher and his niece who also flew.

I loved Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges in underwater scenes. I am sure watching it led to my later love for Jacques Cousteau. An adventure series but I don't recall any women divers.

I adored the Dick Van Dyke Show. I wanted to BE Laura Petrie, married to a writer. I wanted to be a writer, but a show about being married to a writer was all they gave me. And yet, as much as I loved Laura, who did dance now and then, she was a stay-at-home mom content to be a wife.

There were family relationship shows and shows about growing up. I watched The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. It's about boys and their relationship to their fathers. And of course, about Dobie's deep love for girls, all girls, any girl. I loved Bonanza....about a father and his three sons...Which reminds me of My Three Sons, about a father and his three sons... Petticoat Junction came much later, about a woman and her three daughters; it came out when I was eleven.

I watched fantasy shows like Mr Ed the talking horse (a man and his horse) and My Favorite Martian (a man and his Martian). And Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie both about a girl and her adored man...one who squashes her innate powers to suit her husband's ego needs and the other who wants to serve her lord and master.

I was too young to identify with California teenager Gidget, although I liked Sally Fields as The Flying Nun.

Where were the girls--girls who were spunky and smart and who could save the world if need be? I got girls who were daughters and women who were wives, lots of angst about boys and men, or comedians like Lucy.

I found the same issue with books. I loved reading The Black Stallion and other books by Walter Farley, all about boys and their horses. Old Yeller, the book and the movie, was about a boy and his dog. Wendy in Peter Pan wants to be a mother and clean house.

But books did give me some role models.

Charlotte's Web had two lead female characters, Fern who saves Wilbur the pig, and the spider Charlotte who also saves his life. I think it the most important childhood book in my life. It taught so many values. And the superhero was a female spider, also a mother.

I also loved Caddie Woodlawn about a tom-boy pioneer girl.

I wanted to grow up and be Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.

I loved Heidi and The Secret Garden, stories about girls who bring healing.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks by Mary Norton had girls and boys adventuring.

Dorothy had heart and courage in the Wizard of Oz.

As I grew older I discovered Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane was a heroine in her conviction and self-esteem that allowed her to stand up to power.

Since my childhood, great progress has been made and girls have had far more role models than I did.

What role models did you find as a child?