A conversation with Patty Duke

On Sunday, Sept. 5, the Hallmark Channel will premiere “Murder Without Conviction” starring Megan Ward (“Four Corners”) as Christine Bennett, a former nun who finds herself the target of an outraged public when she investigates a 30-year-old murder mystery involving twin savant brothers accused of killing their mother on Good Friday.

The cast also includes Lawrence Pressman (“Doogie Howser”); David Proval (“Mean Streets”) as the twins; and multi-award-winning actor, author and activist Patty Duke, whose credits range from her electrifying 1960s performances as Helen Keller in both the theater and film versions of “The Miracle Worker” to the upcoming “Caught in the Act.”

In “Murder Without Conviction,” Duke plays Mother Joseph, who is in charge of the convent in which Christine had lived for much of her life, and who supports her in her quest for justice, even though her cause looks hopeless.

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Patty Duke says in terms of her career, this is one of the best years she’s had in a long time, and that playing Sister Joseph in “Murder Without Conviction” is one of her best roles in a while.

“I’ve gone from hardly working to working a lot. And better than that, working in things I really want to do, not have to do because who knows when the next offer may come?”

Duke explains that she had some problems that kept her off-screen for a while. “I was always being asked to do things and, suddenly, no one was asking,” she says. “And I realized this was not good. So, I decided that it was time I did something about it, and I did,” Duke says. “And then these wonderful people at Hallmark came to me and told me about this movie and the character, and I knew that I was back.”

Of Sister Joseph, Duke says, “She’s wise. She’s warm. She’s caring. She is, to me, what being a woman is all about. And I love her relationship with Christine, who has gone out into the world and suddenly finds herself involved in trying to find the truth about a murder. Christine has been like a daughter to her, and she’s afraid for her — as any mother would be for her child. But she also believes in her.”

Patty Duke — who has three sons: Sean and Mackenzie Astin and Kevin Pearce — has suffered from manic-depression for much of her life. She says what upset her most about the problem is how it affected her children, especially her eldest son, Sean (“Lord of the Rings”).

She says she tended to take her manic anger out on him, but that by some wonderful miracle, he always responded to her with love.

Of her manic-depression, Duke says, “I think I was one of the first to discuss it publicly, and I’m told that it helped a lot of people to stop feeling ashamed of what is, after all, an illness, and one that can be treated once you know what you have to do.”

As for playing Mother Joseph, Duke says, “Like so many little Catholic girls, I had a nun doll, and I recall praying that I could grow up to be a nun. And while playing one is not being one, let me tell you that once I figured out where to put all those pieces that made up her habit — and I did it with no assistance and with no one else in the room, just the way real nuns do — I looked into the mirror and I felt I not only looked like a nun, I felt like one. And when I went out to the set and people called out to me, ‘Hello, Sister’ or ‘Good morning, Sister,’ I believed it.”

As this is being written, Hallmark is planning to do a series of movie mysteries around the characters of Christine Bennett and Mother Joseph. So it looks as if Patty Duke will be wearing Mother Joseph’s habit and wimple many more times in the coming years.

In Focus

Carl Reiner (“The Dick Van Dyke Show”) stars in NBC’s new animated series “Father of the Pride,” which premieres on Tuesday, Aug. 31. “I play Sarmoti,” Reiner says, “the star of a troupe of white lions who work with Siegfried and Roy in Las Vegas.”

Uh, isn’t Sarmoti’s son-in-law, Larry the Lion (John Goodman), the star?

“Well, maybe he gets the billing, but I’m the legend. I’m also the only one who knows what being a lion is all about because I’m the only one who was born in Africa, where I had a lot of practice doing the lion thing before I went into show business. So, maybe I don’t have a full mane anymore. But I can roar and move and pounce … I do all right.”

Reiner says when he joined “Father of the Pride” and saw how the animators depicted his character, “I asked why they couldn’t give me a nice thick mane. And they said they thought the audience would appreciate that a lion can be bald, but he’s still a lion. And you know, they’re right.”

Besides Reiner and John Goodman, others lending their voices to the characters in “Father of the Pride” include Wendy Malick (“Just Shoot Me”), director Gary Marshall (“Pretty Woman”) and John O’Hurley (“Seinfeld”).