In the 1970s Sandy Duncan was everywhere, a capital “E” entertainer starring in family comedies like “$1,000,000 Duck
The dancing began when Duncan was a kid in New London, Texas. “It’s a teensy oil town. And that’s where I was born and went ’til first grade. It is the VFW hall, a grocery store, a drug store, the bank, and then a church, and a church, and a church, and a church, and a church. Then, you’re outta town.”
That’s where Duncan danced in her first recital when she was just five years old. “I didn’t have the lead part; Nona Kay did. We were sorta that back-up girl that would go, ‘that’s, Nona Kay, that’s Duncan said in an interview.
Duncan, however, had the most talent, and when she was 19 she headed to New York. “I moved into this place called the Rehearsal Club, which was just for young women. It was $32 a week. I started getting work right away, which is lucky because it’s not always the case. And also, I couldn’t audition. Never could, I still can’t. I stink.”
It’s easy to forget that Duncan’s greatest triumph happened after her brain tumor. In his review of “Peter Pan,” New York Times theater critic Walter Kerr described how the wires seemed to disappear when Duncan took flight: “She just lets go of gravity, gracefully and gleefully, and lets the mechanical equipment catch up as best it can.”
