Letters to Calendar

Patty Duke remembered

Thank you, Kenneth Turan, for your article on Anna [“My Time With Anna: Patty Duke’s Stories Still Reverberate,” March 20]. I loved watching “The Patty Duke Show” as a child and wished she could have been my friend. Many years later, I saw her at the old Ship’s Coffee Shop in Westwood helping her kids with the table-top toasters. She seemed like such a regular mom, and that made me admire her even more. Her brave and candid disclosure of her mental illness and her efforts to bring greater understanding and treatment to fellow sufferers showed character and strength few in the industry could match. I will miss this great lady.

Ria Levine

Oak Park

‘American Idol’ best suggestions

Regarding “Five High Notes from the Show” [April 3], to overlook Clay Akin’s rendition of the generation-defining “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” was a big omission. That performance defined the show.

David Reid

Hollywood

::

I’d suggest Adam Lambert’s “Mad World.”

Susan Hopkins

Irvine

More music from ‘Star Trek’

Regarding Nicholas Meyer’s letter about the music of “Star Trek” [“Calendar Letters,” April 3], absolutely Gene Roddenberry was influenced by the “Horatio Hornblower” books. However, the fanfare from the original “Star Trek” series, written by Alexander Courage, and the score for “Captain Horatio Hornblower” (the 1951 film) share three notes.

Richard Arnold

Former assistant to Gene Roddenberry

Not exactly breakfast fare

Regarding: “Missing the Mark: ‘Walking Dead’ Season 6 Seems to be Shooting Itself in the Foot” [April 2]: Guns and gore, just what I like on a Saturday morning, with breakfast — not!

David Weaver

San Juan Capistrano

Bieber fan reacts to criticism

Letter writer Robert Langelier says, “Trying to figure out what’s more laughable: your writer attending and reviewing a Bieber concert or the idea that Bieber’s fans read The Times” [“Calendar Letters,” April 3]. I am a Times reader who thinks Justin Bieber is talented and appreciate that Mikael Wood wrote a thoughtful review of one of the singer’s sold-out L.A. concerts.

Don’t like Bieber’s music or his public persona? Then ignore him. But don’t slam his millions of fans.

Karen Lindell

Santa Barbara

Simpson case spurred change

Regarding “It Remains a Real American Story” [April 5], I do not agree that “There was no lasting social change spurred by the trial of [O.J.] Simpson or the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, no silver lining to senseless brutality.” The murder of Nicole Simpson and our subsequent learning of the domestic abuse she suffered opened society’s eyes and began society’s moving forward on a different path to recognize and properly penalize wife battering with new rules and laws written to better protect and serve the battered wives among us.

Karen Higgins

Arcadia

Making money magically

Regarding “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Is a Bewitching Attraction” [April 4], the greatest feat of magic demonstrated by Warner Bros. and Universal is the ease with which they convince people to part with heaps of money to pay usurious ticket prices to enter Harry Potter Land.

Indeed, a power even Voldemort could only covet, never master.

Michael E. White

Burbank