She Had a Heady Career on ‘Patty Duke’

If you remember ABC’s “The Patty Duke Show” (1963-66), you’ll recall the sitcom centered on lookalike teen cousins--both played by Duke, and using an anonymous stand-in shot from the back when the cousins conversed. Nickolodeon, currently re-running the series on its quirky “Nick at Nite” show, recently promoted the late night entry with a purported “exclusive interview” with one Franny Glass, a heavily wigged actress who allegedly shot to fame years ago as Duke’s double.

The faceless Glass, taped from behind, recounted to Nick’s audience her sad slide into oblivion after she (so she said)--not Duke--copped an Emmy for her work. A jealous Duke then canceled the show. Thereafter, Glass supposedly appeared in dandruff commercials and starred in a failed TV pilot, “The Back of the Patty Duke’s Head Show.” And so on.

But for Diane Foster, a Palm Desert housewife and mother of two, the spoof was not all that funny.

“It was humorous, at best,” said Foster, 41, formerly the teen actress who was the primary stand-in as cousin Cathy (there were several). “But I really don’t know why they’re dredging this up . . . “

Foster is still irked that she never got any billing for her role: “Patty’s managers never wanted to play that up . . . they really tried to keep that quiet.

“I’m getting really tired of being known as ‘Patty Duke’s back,’ ” Foster added, noting that she was required to learn dialogue for both the Patty and Cathy characters (Duke’s voice was later dubbed in). “There was a whole lot more to doing that show than most people realize.”

So much more, in fact, that Foster is currently working on a book--about life as the back of Patty Duke’s head.