50 Fun Facts About The Miracle Worker

Which American author coined the nickname for Anne Sullivan that later gave the play The Miracle Worker its title?

Mark Twain admired both women and called Helen Keller a miracle and her instructor the miracle worker. He also helped arrange the funding for Keller's college education.

Which word, half-remembered from infancy, does Helen Keller finally understand at the climax of The Miracle Worker?

Water rushing over one hand while Annie Sullivan spells into the other finally links the finger signs to the world. Helen then races around the yard demanding the name of everything she touches.

Which screen superstar did United Artists want as Annie Sullivan in the 1962 film The Miracle Worker?

Elizabeth Taylor was the studio's choice, but the director insisted on the actress who had played the part on stage. The studio then saw the project as a risk and kept its budget tight.

Which actress played Helen Keller in the 1962 film The Miracle Worker, then Annie Sullivan in a 1979 TV remake?

Patty Duke won an Oscar at 16 as Helen and an Emmy as Annie in the remake. She had first created the role of Helen on Broadway in 1959.

What did both stars wear under their costumes to film the nine-minute dining room fight in The Miracle Worker (1962)?

Protective padding spared both actresses serious bruises as they wrestled over table manners. The sequence needed three cameras and took five days to shoot.

Which famous inventor steered Helen Keller's parents to the Perkins school before the events of The Miracle Worker?

Alexander Graham Bell was working with deaf children when the Kellers consulted him in 1886. Helen Keller later dedicated her autobiography to him.

Which Broadway star repeated her stage role as Annie Sullivan in the 1962 film The Miracle Worker and won an Oscar?

Anne Bancroft later became even more famous as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. She was appearing in another Broadway play on Oscar night and could not collect her statuette in person.

Which Little House on the Prairie star played Helen Keller in the 1979 television remake of The Miracle Worker?

Melissa Gilbert, television's Laura Ingalls, earned an Emmy nomination as Helen. Annie Sullivan was played by the actress who had won an Oscar as Helen in the 1962 film.

Which English novelist's account of deaf-blind Laura Bridgman inspired the real mother portrayed in The Miracle Worker?

Charles Dickens met Laura Bridgman at the Perkins school in 1842 and praised her education in American Notes. Reading it decades later moved Helen Keller's mother to seek help for her own daughter.

Which ten-year-old broke the competitive Oscar age record set by The Miracle Worker's 16-year-old supporting actress?

Tatum O'Neal won Best Supporting Actress for Paper Moon in 1974, acting opposite her father Ryan. The Miracle Worker's Helen had held the record for eleven years.

Which mealtime habit of Helen Keller's sparks the famous breakfast fight with Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker?

Eating from others' plates with her bare hands is a habit the family indulges to keep the peace. Annie Sullivan asks everyone else to leave the room and battles Helen alone until she sits and eats properly.

Which final feat of table manners does Annie Sullivan report after the dining room battle in The Miracle Worker?

Helen folded her napkin only after she had finally eaten with a spoon. The real Annie Sullivan described the same tussle in an 1887 letter, saying the napkin alone took another hour.

Which gift from the Perkins pupils supplies the first word Annie Sullivan spells to Helen in The Miracle Worker?

A doll brought from the school gives the pair their first finger-spelled word, and Helen soon uses it to hit her new governess in the face. The real one had been dressed by Laura Bridgman.

Where on the Keller property does Annie Sullivan live alone with Helen for two weeks in The Miracle Worker?

The garden house is close to home, but Helen is taken on a long drive first so that she believes she is far away. With no family to run to, she has to rely on Annie Sullivan for everything.

Where does Helen Keller secretly drop the key to Annie Sullivan's bedroom at the end of Act One of The Miracle Worker?

Down the well it goes, after Helen has kept it hidden in her mouth. The real Helen Keller hid the key under a hallway wardrobe and did not produce it for months.

How is Annie Sullivan freed in The Miracle Worker after Helen Keller locks her inside an upstairs room?

A ladder is fetched and set at her window, a humiliating rescue for the new governess. Helen Keller's memoir says her real father had to do the same, much to her delight.

Which accessory, a farewell present from blind schoolgirls, does Annie Sullivan wear throughout The Miracle Worker?

Smoked glasses shield eyes that a series of operations had only partly restored. Annie Sullivan had entered the Perkins school as a nearly blind girl herself.

Which younger brother, lost in a Massachusetts almshouse, haunts Annie Sullivan throughout The Miracle Worker?

Jimmie died of tuberculosis only months after the two children were sent to the state almshouse. Her guilt over him drives Annie Sullivan to fight so hard for Helen.

Which northern city, home of the Perkins school, does Annie Sullivan leave by train for Alabama in The Miracle Worker?

Boston is where the 20-year-old has spent her schooldays, and the post in Alabama is her first job. Captain Keller soon blames her blunt manner on her being a Yankee.

Which character in The Miracle Worker discovers, as the doctor leaves, that baby Helen can no longer see or hear?

Kate Keller makes the discovery while her husband is seeing the doctor out. The scene then jumps forward more than five years, to a Helen who rules the household with her tantrums.

What relation to Helen is James Keller, the sarcastic young man who finally defies the Captain in The Miracle Worker?

Her half-brother is the Captain's son from his first marriage and resents the attention Helen receives. Near the end he blocks the door so that his father cannot stop Annie Sullivan.

In which force had The Miracle Worker's Captain Keller, later an Alabama newspaper editor, earned his rank?

The Confederate Army made Helen's father a captain during the Civil War, two decades before the play begins. At the breakfast table he is still refighting its battles with his son.

Which Civil War general does Captain Keller compare the stubborn Annie Sullivan to in The Miracle Worker?

Ulysses S. Grant took Vicksburg after a siege of 47 days, a campaign the Captain argues over at breakfast. He does not mean the comparison as a compliment.

Which servant boy does Annie Sullivan teach to finger-spell in The Miracle Worker so that a jealous Helen joins in?

Percy gets a spelling lesson while Helen sulks out of reach, refusing to be touched. Her curiosity wins, and contact with Annie Sullivan is restored.

Which Alabama town, the real birthplace of Helen Keller, is the setting of the play The Miracle Worker?

Tuscumbia is the seat of Colbert County, near the Tennessee River in the Shoals area. Helen Keller's family home there has been a museum dedicated to her since 1954.

At which Keller homestead is The Miracle Worker performed outdoors each summer as Alabama's official outdoor drama?

Ivy Green was built by Helen Keller's grandfather in 1820. The summer performances on its grounds have been running for more than thirty years.

In The Miracle Worker, which part of her own face does Helen Keller touch as her private sign for her mother?

Her cheek is one of the home-made gestures Helen relies on before she has language. By the age of seven the real Helen Keller had more than 60 such signs for her family.

Which stage device does The Miracle Worker use to reveal Annie Sullivan's painful memories of her almshouse childhood?

Offstage voices let the audience hear what is going on inside her head while the action on stage continues. Some critics of the first production found the device clumsy, but the play was a popular hit anyway.

Which treat does Annie Sullivan dole out in The Miracle Worker as a reward each time Helen spells a word correctly?

Cake, handed over in small bits, was the real Annie Sullivan's reward too, as her 1887 letters record. The family, by contrast, used sweets simply to quiet Helen's tantrums.

Which American playwright, whose first Broadway hit was Two for the Seesaw, wrote The Miracle Worker?

William Gibson first tried the subject as a solo dance piece before writing it as a television play. He then chose the stage over a film offer because it gave him more artistic control.

On which CBS anthology series did The Miracle Worker first appear in 1957, two years before it reached Broadway?

Playhouse 90 took its name from its unusual length, presenting a 90-minute drama each week. Viewers liked its Miracle Worker so much that offers to adapt the script for stage and screen followed.

Which future Bonnie and Clyde director staged The Miracle Worker on Broadway and then filmed it in 1962?

Arthur Penn won Broadway's directing prize for the play and an Oscar nomination for the film. Five years later his Bonnie and Clyde helped launch the New Hollywood era.

Which honor did The Miracle Worker win in 1960, beating Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun among others?

The Tony Award for Best Play was one of four the production won that night, with others going to its director and its leading lady. Its young Helen, however, was not even nominated.

Which future Bob Newhart Show co-star took over as Annie Sullivan in Broadway's The Miracle Worker in 1961?

Suzanne Pleshette stepped into the part in February 1961, when the original star left the long-running production. She later spent six seasons as Emily Hartley, the wife on The Bob Newhart Show.

Which later Best Actress winner for Hud played Helen's mother in the original Broadway cast of The Miracle Worker?

Patricia Neal played the mother on stage but not on screen, where the part went to Inga Swenson. Her Oscar for Hud came a year after her former stage co-star won the same award.

Which Mrs. Miniver Oscar winner was the first Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker, on television in 1957?

Teresa Wright earned an Emmy nomination for the broadcast, but a different actress took the part when the script was reworked for the stage.

Which child star of The Bad Seed played Helen Keller in the original 1957 television version of The Miracle Worker?

Patty McCormack earned an Oscar nomination as the murderous Rhoda in the film of The Bad Seed. Decades later she turned up in The Sopranos as Adriana La Cerva's mother.

Which young film star made her Broadway debut as Helen Keller in the 2010 revival of The Miracle Worker?

Abigail Breslin was already an Oscar nominee for Little Miss Sunshine. An advocacy group criticised the producers for not casting a deaf or blind actress, and the revival closed within weeks.

Which autobiography, begun while Helen Keller was still a college student, is the basis of The Miracle Worker?

The Story of My Life first ran as instalments in the Ladies' Home Journal. The play also leans heavily on the letters her governess wrote from Alabama in 1887, which were printed with it.

Which Hollywood legend collected the Best Actress Oscar for The Miracle Worker on behalf of its absent winner?

Joan Crawford had offered to accept for any nominee who could not attend, and smiled radiantly as she took the stage. Her old rival Bette Davis, nominated that year herself, was livid.

Which child actress, famous as the Pepsi Girl of 1990s commercials, played Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (2000)?

Hallie Eisenberg was eight when the television film first aired. Her brother is the actor Jesse Eisenberg.

Which star of The Spitfire Grill and The Wings of the Dove played Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker (2000)?

Alison Elliott played the part in the third screen version of the play. A different Alison, the Canadian actress Alison Pill, took the same role in the 2010 Broadway revival.

Which actor, later Oscar-nominated as Edward R. Murrow, played Captain Keller in The Miracle Worker (2000)?

David Strathairn played the stern Southern father five years before portraying the CBS newsman in Good Night, and Good Luck.

Which Alabama-born actor, later the lead of Tokyo Drift, played James Keller in The Miracle Worker (2000)?

Lucas Black was born in Decatur, Alabama, and had made his name as the boy in Sling Blade. He was still in high school when he played the Captain's resentful son.

Which long-running ABC anthology series premiered the 2000 television film of The Miracle Worker?

The Wonderful World of Disney showed the film on ABC on November 12, 2000, with Nadia Tass directing. It was the third screen version of the stage play, after 1962 and 1979.

Which Bollywood star played the teacher in a 2005 Hindi film inspired, like The Miracle Worker, by Helen Keller?

Amitabh Bachchan played the tutor of a deaf-blind girl, with Rani Mukerji as his grown pupil. Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali read Keller's autobiography while preparing the film.

From which women's college did Helen Keller graduate in 1904, with The Miracle Worker's heroine still at her side?

Radcliffe made Helen Keller the first deaf-blind person in the United States to earn a college degree. In class, every lecture had to be spelled into her hand as fast as the professor spoke.

Which distinction did Annie Sullivan earn at her Perkins graduation, months before the events of The Miracle Worker?

Valedictorian of her class at 20, she had come to the school from an almshouse six years earlier, unable to read or write.

Which actress, mother of Gwyneth Paltrow, played Annie Sullivan in the 1984 TV sequel to The Miracle Worker?

Blythe Danner starred in Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues, with Mare Winningham as the grown Helen. It follows the pair from Helen's college years into Annie's troubled marriage.

Where do the ashes of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, the real pair behind The Miracle Worker, rest side by side?

Washington National Cathedral holds the ashes of both women, along with those of their later companion Polly Thomson. The two had lived and worked together for almost fifty years.