Metropolis Reality Forums - Anne Bancroft died

Sponsored by: The Fans!

Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register.
Nov 25^th, 2024, 7:54am

Upcoming Premiere Dates:
Survivor 23, Season premiere
Thursday, September 14 (8:00-9:30 PM, ET/PT) on CBS

Metropolis Reality Forums Ť Anne Bancroft died ť

   Metropolis Reality Forums
   Off-Topic Forums
   In the News (Moderators: lakelady, yesteach, MediaScribe, Bumper, Isle_be_back)
   Anne Bancroft died

Previous topic | New Topic | Next topic »

Pages: 1

Add Poll

Notify of replies

Send Topic

Author

Topic: Anne Bancroft died (Read 155 times)

lakelady
ForumsNet Moderator
Moderator
ForumsNet Member

Posts: 11251

Anne Bancroft died
« on: Jun 7^th, 2005, 6:21pm »

Quote

Modify

NEW YORK - Anne Bancroft, who won the 1962 best actress Oscar as the teacher of a young Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker" but achieved greater fame as the seductive Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate," has died. She was 73. She died of cancer on Monday at Mount Sinai Hospital, John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, Mel Brooks, said Tuesday.

Bancroft was awarded the Tony for creating the role on Broadway of poor-sighted Annie Sullivan, the teacher of Keller, who was born deaf and blind. She repeated her portrayal in the film version.

Yet despite her Academy Award and four other nominations, "The Graduate" overshadowed her other achievements.

Dustin Hoffman delivered the famous line when he realized his girlfriend's mother was coming on to him in a hotel room: "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. ... Aren't you?"

Bancroft complained to a 2003 interviewer: "I am quite surprised that with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about `The Miracle Worker.' We're talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world. ... I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet."

Her beginnings in Hollywood were unimpressive. She was signed by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1952 and given the glamour treatment. She had been acting in television as Anne Marno (her real name: Anna Maria Louise Italiano), but it sounded too ethnic for movies. The studio gave her a choice of names; she picked Bancroft "because it sounded dignified."

After a series of B pictures, she escaped to Broadway in 1958 and won her first Tony opposite Henry Fonda in "Two for the Seesaw." The stage and movie versions of "The Miracle Worker" followed. Her other Academy nominations: "The Pumpkin Eater" (1964); "The Graduate" (1967); "The Turning Point" (1977); "Agnes of God" (1985).

Bancroft became known for her willingness to assume a variety of portrayals. She appeared as Winston Churchill's American mother in TV's "Young Winston"; as Golda Meir in "Golda" onstage; a gypsy woman in the film "Love Potion No. 9"; and a centenarian for the TV version of "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All."

After an unhappy three-year marriage to builder Martin May, Bancroft married comedian-director-producer Brooks in 1956. They met when she was rehearsing a musical number, "Married I Can Always Get," for the Perry Como television show, and a voice from offstage called: "I'm Mel Brooks."

In a 1984 interview she said she told her psychiatrist the next day: "Let's speed this process up I've met the right man. See, I'd never had so much pleasure being with another human being. I wanted him to enjoy me too. It was that simple." A son, Maximilian, was born in 1972.

Bancroft appeared in three of Brooks' comedies: "Silent Movie," a remake of "To Be or Not to Be" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It."

She also was the one who suggested that he make a stage musical of his movie "The Producers." She explained that when he was afraid of writing a full-blown musical, including the music, "I sent him to an analyst."

When Bancroft watched Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick rehearse "The Producers," she realized how much she had missed the theater. In 2002 she returned to Broadway for the first time since 1981, appearing in Edward Albee's "Occupant."

She was born Sept. 17, 1931, in the Bronx to Italian immigrant parents. She recalled scrawling "I want to be an actress" on the back fence of her flat when she was 9. Her father derided her ambitions, saying, "Who are we to dream these dreams?" Her mother was the dreamer, encouraging her daughter in 1958 to enroll at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts.

Live television drama was flourishing in New York in the early 1950s, and Bancroft appeared in 50 shows in two years. "It was the greatest school that one could go to," she said in 1997. "You learn to be concentrated and focused."

In mid-career Bancroft attended the Actors Studio to heighten her understanding of the acting craft. Later she studied at the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women at UCLA. In 1980 she directed a feature, "Fatso," starring Dom De Luise. It received modest attention.

Among her notable portrayals: a potential suicide in "The Slender Thread"; Mary Magdalene in Franco Zeffirelli's miniseries "Jesus of Nazareth"; actress Madge Kindle in "The Elephant Man"; Anthony Hopkins' pen pal in "84 Charing Cross Road"; feminist U.S. senator in "G.I. Jane"; the Miss Haversham role in a modernized "Great Expectations."

Despite all her memorable performances, Bancroft was remembered most for Mrs. Robinson. In 2003 she admitted that nearly everyone discouraged from undertaking the role "because it was all about sex with a younger man." She viewed the character as having unfulfilled dreams and having been relegated to a conventional life with a conventional husband.

She added: "Film critics said I gave a voice to the fear we all have: that we'll reach a certain point in our lives, look around and realize that all the things we said we'd do and become will never come to be and that we're ordinary."

IP Logged

luci
ForumsNet Member

Gender:

Posts: 12045

Re: Anne Bancroft died
« Reply #1 on: Jun 7^th, 2005, 7:01pm »

Quote

Modify

Oh, this is sad news! My hearfelt sympathy to her husband, Mel Brooks,
for he will be devastated without her.
To any other family members she may have living, sincere condolences.

The entertainment world will miss her tremendously.

Cool

"Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson" Cool

IP Logged

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and
can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."

Pocket
ForumsNet Member

Posts: 1437

Re: Anne Bancroft died
« Reply #2 on: Jun 7^th, 2005, 9:15pm »

Quote

Modify

Anne Bancroft was a wonderful actress. I'm sorry she had cancer and that it caused her death. Her husband must be devastated....they were married almost 50 years. RIP, Anne.

IP Logged

bec
ForumsNet Member

I'm a pathetically happy person!

Gender:

Posts: 820

Re: Anne Bancroft died
« Reply #3 on: Jun 7^th, 2005, 11:10pm »

Quote

Modify

This is so sad........I loved Anne Bancroft as an actress and I always remember her in "The Miracle Worker"

She and her hubby were an unlikely couple i always thought but what a great team they made.....he certainly will be devestated.

IP Logged

luci
ForumsNet Member

Gender:

Posts: 12045

Re: Anne Bancroft died
« Reply #4 on: Jun 8^th, 2005, 10:15am »

Quote

Modify

The Today Show aired a film clip of Ann and Mel when they were very young and on stage together singing and dancing to "Sweet Georgia Brown"
Quite an act they had! And Mel was handsome!
We all know Ann was beautiful, as she stayed all through the years!

IP Logged

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and
can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."

Pages: 1

Add Poll

Notify of replies

Send Topic


Previous topic \| New Topic \| Next topic »