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Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft (September 17, 1931 – June 6, 2005) was an American actress associated with the method school of acting.
Early life:
Bancroft was born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of Mildred , a telephone operator, and Michael Italiano, a dress pattern maker.Her parents were both children of Italian immigrants. Bancroft graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx in 1948, and attended HB Studio, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Actors Studio, and the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women at UCLA. After appearing in a number of live television dramas under the name Anne Marno, she was told to change her surname for her film debut in Don’t Bother to Knock in 1952.
Career
Bancroft was a contract player in the early days of her career just as the studio contract system was ending. She left Hollywood because of the poor quality of roles she was being offered and returned to New York.
In 1958, Bancroft made her Broadway debut as lovelorn, Bronx-talkin’ Gittel Mosca opposite Henry Fonda (as the married man Gittel loves) in William Gibson’s two-character play Two for the Seesaw, directed by Arthur Penn. For Gittel, she won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. (Though her role was quite equal to Fonda’s, he, an established film actor, was the star, and so she was eligible in the featured category). She subsequently won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play in 1960, again with playwright Gibson and director Penn, when she played Annie Sullivan, the sight-impaired, heroically indefatigable Irish girl who teaches the child Helen Keller to communicate in The Miracle Worker. She took the latter role back to Hollywood, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1962, with Patty Duke repeating her success as Helen alongside her. Bancroft had returned to Broadway to star in Mother Courage and her Children. Joan Crawford accepted Bancroft’s Oscar on her behalf, and later presented the award to her in New York. She is one of the very distinct few to have won an Academy Award and Tony Award for the same role. Bancroft also co-starred as a medieval nun obsessed with a priest opposite Jason Robards in the 1965 Broadway production of John Whiting’s controversial play The Devils. Produced by Alexander H. Cohen and directed by Michael Cacoyannis, it ran for a total of 31 performances.[2]
A highly-acclaimed television special, Annie: the Women in the Life of a Man, won Bancroft an Emmy Award for her singing and acting. Bancroft is one of a very select few entertainers to win an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony award.
Other major film roles were in The Pumpkin Eater, 7 Women, and what is unquestionably Bancroft’s best-known role as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. In the last, she played an unhappily married woman who seduces the much-younger recent college graduate played by Dustin Hoffman. Although Bancroft is now identified as Mrs. Robinson, she was not the first choice for the role; Patricia Neal, Doris Day and Jeanne Moreau all turned it down. Bancroft was ambivalent about her appearance in The Graduate; she stated in several interviews that the role overshadowed all of her other work. Although her status as the “older woman” in the film is iconic, Bancroft was actually only 36 years old to Dustin Hoffman’s 30 when the film was released.
In 1980, Bancroft made her debut as a screenwriter and director in Fatso, in which she starred along with Dom DeLuise. Bancroft was also the original choice to play Joan Crawford in the 1981 movie Mommie Dearest, but backed out at the 11th hour, and was replaced by Faye Dunaway. She was also a front-runner for the role of Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment, but declined in order to act in the remake of To Be or Not to Be (1983).
Bancroft received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6368 Hollywood Boulevard for her film work.
Marriage and family
Bancroft was married to Martin May from July 1, 1953, to February 13, 1957. There were no children.
In 1961, Bancroft met Mel Brooks at a rehearsal for the Perry Como variety show. Brooks bribed a studio employee to find out where she was having dinner so he could meet her again. Once Bancroft met Brooks, she went to her therapist and told him they had to conclude the therapy as fast as possible because she had met the man she was going to marry.
Bancroft and Brooks married on August 5, 1964, at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau near New York City Hall and were together until her death. They had one son, Maximillian, in 1972. They were seen three times on the screen together: once dancing a tango in Brooks’s 1976 Silent Movie; in Brooks’s 1983 remake of To Be or Not to Be; and in the episode entitled “Opening Night” of the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm. They were also in Dracula: Dead and Loving It, but never appeared together. Brooks produced the 1980 film The Elephant Man, in which Bancroft acted. He also was executive-producer for the 1987 film 84 Charing Cross Road in which she starred. Both Brooks and Bancroft appeared in season six of The Simpsons. According to the DVD commentary, when Bancroft came to record her lines for the episode “Fear of Flying”, the Simpsons writers asked if Brooks had come with her (which he had), she joked, ‘I can’t get rid of him!’
Death
Bancroft died of uterine cancer on June 6, 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.[3] Her death surprised even some of her friends; she was intensely private and had not released details of her illness.
Bancroft was survived by Brooks, their son, Maximillian, a grandson, her mother Mildred and two sisters, Joanne and Phyllis. She is interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, near her father, Michael Italiano. A white marble monument with a weeping angel adorns her grave.
Theater:
Production
Two for the Seesaw
The Miracle Worker
Mother Courage and Her Children
The Devils
The Little Foxes
A Cry of Players
Golda
Duet for One
Occupant
Film
Don’t Bother to Knock
Tonight We Sing
Treasure of the Golden Condor
The Kid from Left Field
Gorilla at Large
Demetrius and the Gladiators
The Raid
New York Confidential
A Life in the Balance
The Naked Street
The Last Frontier
Walk the Proud Land
Nightfall
The Restless Breed
The Girl in Black Stockings
The Miracle Worker
The Pumpkin Eater
The Slender Thread
7 Women
The Graduate
Young Winston
Blazing Saddles
The Prisoner of Second Avenue
The Hindenburg
Lipstick
Silent Movie
Jesus Of Nazareth
The Turning Point
Fatso
The Elephant Man
To Be or Not to Be
Garbo Talks
Agnes of God
‘night, Mother
84 Charing Cross Road
Torch Song Trilogy
Bert Rigby, You’re a Fool
Honeymoon in Vegas
Love Potion No. 9
Point of No Return
Malice
Mr. Jones
How to Make an American Quilt
Home for the Holidays
Dracula: Dead and Loving It
The Sunchaser
G.I. Jane
Critical Care
Great Expectations
Mark Twain’s America in 3D
Antz
Keeping the Faith
Up at the Villa
Heartbreakers
In Search of Peace
Delgo
Television
Title
ABC Stage 67 - I’m Getting Married
Annie: The Women in the Life of a Man
Annie and the Hoods
Jesus of Nazareth
Marco Polo
Freddie and Max
Broadway Bound
Mrs. Cage
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
Great Performances - The Mother
The Simpsons
Homecoming
Deep in My Heart
Haven
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Photo Gallery:
Topics: Actress, Celebrities
Tags: Agnes of God, American actress, Blazing Saddles, Garbo Talks, Gorilla at Large, Lipstick, Nightfall, silent movie, Tonight We Sing
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