Free Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke by Patty Duke Page B

was pretty hefty then—people didn’t leave their homes when they were on—and the award money seemed astronomical to me. My winnings were supposed to go into a trust fund but, like the rest of my earnings, what really happened to them is a mystery.
    So while I may have seemed to be a very composed little girl, with pigtails and bows and perfect little dresses, I was actually much too terrified to be anything like excited. I was afraid of the Rosses and their browbeating kind of consequences if I messed up: “You didn’t study enough.” “You didn’t practice hard enough.” “You knew that answer, how could you be so stupid?” “If you had done what we told you, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
    I knew the difference between right and wrong; I’d taken tests in school and knew you weren’t supposed to give the answers to anybody. But whom could I tell about what was going on? Whom could I tell about being so afraid? My mother? When I finally told John they were giving me the answers, what he said was, “It’s a secret, you mustn’t tell anyone.” Eventually, though, not only did it come out, but everyone in America knew.
    Things began to fall apart in 1959, the year after my appearance, when first the New York district attorney’s office and then a grand jury began to investigate both The $64,000 Challenge and Twenty-one. John Ross said to me, “We’ve got to go to the district attorney. All the people connected with the show are going to tell the same story, that you were not given the answers, you were only given general areas to study.” Later, when the whole thing burst wide open, he said, “Remember, you would come out of the meetings and say that what went on was a secret, that you couldn’t tell me.” Which, of course, wasn’t true, but it was my cue. Now I could see how he expected me to play this game.
    By the time I went to see the district attorney in one of those ancient New York municipal buildings, I was seriously scared. His office was stark, with those brown wooden chairs with arms that smell from all the sweaty palms that have been rubbed over them. My feet didn’t touch the ground, so I couldn’t even feel physically grounded. The meeting was very brief and, as instructed, I lied to him about what went on before the show.
    The grand jury was worse. For one thing, they subpoenaed my mother to testify. Now, there was one person who truly knew nothing about the show. She fell apart in the hall, got hysterical and fainted. Next came my turn. I was dressed like Shirley Temple and I carried a little stuffed dog, Scotty, with a Catholic medal pinned to his underside. It was the same kind of chair, the same kind of smell, but I was taken aback by seeing forty people in the room: the only juries I knew about were the small ones I saw on TV.
    When a tiny girl walks into a jury room carrying a stuffed dog, everyone starts to sigh. My feet still didn’t touch the ground, but I wanted to look relaxed. So I put my elbow on the armrest and placed my chin in my hand, but, of course, the elbow slipped off, and my head went flying. I got a big laugh and I was enough of a show business veteran to know I had a favorable audience, that if I didn’t screw up, I’d be okay here. I’d been coached by John not to volunteer anything, so when I was asked a direct question, I gave the shortest possible answer. When they said, “Can you be more specific?” I’d pretend I didn’t know what that meant. Onceagain I gave out the party line, that there had been talk in general areas. I never revealed that I was given any answers.
    At the same time, I was again very frightened. I was a year older than when I’d been on the show, and what was right versus what was wrong was even clearer to me. I knew what perjury was and I knew I was committing it. I really felt I was selling my soul to stay out of trouble with the Rosses. Also, I had all these gothic fantasies going. I thought I’d committed a crime and