Actress Anne Bancroft Dies at Age 73
Oscar Winner Anne Bancroft, Who Starred As Mrs. Robinson in 'The Graduate' Dies at 73
Jun. 8, 2005 - Friends recalled Anne Bancroft as anything but ordinary Tuesday, a day after the actress died at age 73. She died of uterine cancer, according to John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, producer Mel Brooks.
In a long list of memorable film and stage roles, Bancroft was best known for her role as Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate." It was a part she almost didn't take.
She said in 2003 that nearly everyone discouraged her from playing the role of Dustin Hoffman's middle-aged seductress "because it was all about sex with a younger man." Yet Bancroft saw something deeper, viewing the character as having unfulfilled dreams and having been relegated to a conventional life with a conventional husband.
"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."
Friends recalled Bancroft as anything but ordinary Tuesday, a day after the actress died at age 73. She died of uterine cancer, according to John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, producer Mel Brooks.
"Her combination of brains, humor, frankness and sense were unlike any other artist," Mike Nichols, who directed her in "The Graduate," said in a statement. "Her beauty was constantly shifting with her roles, and because she was a consummate actress she changed radically for every part."
The lights on Broadway will be dimmed Wednesday in Bancroft's honor.
Bancroft was among the most lauded actresses of the 1960s and 1970s, earning five Academy Award nominations and one Oscar, for playing the teacher of a young Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker," a role that also brought her one of two Tony Awards.
Yet "The Graduate" overshadowed her other achievements. Hoffman delivered the famous line when he realized his girlfriend's mother was coming on to him at her house: "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"
"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," she said in 2003. "I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet."
Bancroft's 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."
To read rest of article, go here: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=830109
1st picture is Anne as Annie Sullivan in "The Miracle Worker" with Patty Duke.
2nd picture is Anne as Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate" with Dustin Hoffman.
Oscar Winner Anne Bancroft, Who Starred As Mrs. Robinson in 'The Graduate' Dies at 73
Jun. 8, 2005 - Friends recalled Anne Bancroft as anything but ordinary Tuesday, a day after the actress died at age 73. She died of uterine cancer, according to John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, producer Mel Brooks.
In a long list of memorable film and stage roles, Bancroft was best known for her role as Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate." It was a part she almost didn't take.
She said in 2003 that nearly everyone discouraged her from playing the role of Dustin Hoffman's middle-aged seductress "because it was all about sex with a younger man." Yet Bancroft saw something deeper, viewing the character as having unfulfilled dreams and having been relegated to a conventional life with a conventional husband.
"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."
Friends recalled Bancroft as anything but ordinary Tuesday, a day after the actress died at age 73. She died of uterine cancer, according to John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, producer Mel Brooks.
"Her combination of brains, humor, frankness and sense were unlike any other artist," Mike Nichols, who directed her in "The Graduate," said in a statement. "Her beauty was constantly shifting with her roles, and because she was a consummate actress she changed radically for every part."
The lights on Broadway will be dimmed Wednesday in Bancroft's honor.
Bancroft was among the most lauded actresses of the 1960s and 1970s, earning five Academy Award nominations and one Oscar, for playing the teacher of a young Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker," a role that also brought her one of two Tony Awards.
Yet "The Graduate" overshadowed her other achievements. Hoffman delivered the famous line when he realized his girlfriend's mother was coming on to him at her house: "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"
"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," she said in 2003. "I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet."
Bancroft's 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."
To read rest of article, go here: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=830109
1st picture is Anne as Annie Sullivan in "The Miracle Worker" with Patty Duke.
2nd picture is Anne as Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate" with Dustin Hoffman.
