Anne Bancroft
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Notes
Inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame (1992).
"She's made out of heavy-duty Bronx material. She can do anything, She could play Queen Victoria in a minute. She's a magnificent actress in every possible respect."---director Arthur Penn quoted in the Los Angeles Times, August 10, 1997.
Biography
While some actors were lucky enough to find one role for which they would always be remembered, actress Anne Bancroft was both blessed and cursed for her turn as the icily seductive Mrs. Robinson in Mike Nichols' "The Graduate" (1967). Bancroft's legendary career spanned some six decades and encompassed parts as varied as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the Broadway production of "Golda" (1977), as well as the sight-impaired teacher of Helen Keller, Annie Sullivan, in "The Miracle Worker" (1962), the latter of which earned her both an Oscar and a Tony award. In fact, Bancroft was that rarest of performers who managed to earn her profession's Triple Crown, winning an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy. Bancroft undeniably fashioned an envious array of performances. Unlike many in showbiz, she also managed to find the love of her life in the form of comedy writer and director Mel Brooks, whom she married in 1964 and remained close to up until her death in 2005. Bancroft also turned in multi-nominated performances in "The Turning Point" (1977), "Agnes of God" (1985) and "Neil Simon's Broadway Bound" (ABC, 1992), all of which underscored an exemplary career unlikely to ever be duplicated again.
Bancroft was born on Sept. 17, 1931 in the Bronx, NY to Italian immigrant parents; her father, Michael, was a dress pattern maker and her mother, Mildred, was a telephone operator. After graduating from Christopher Columbus High School in 1948, Bancroft attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she studied with Herbert Berghof from 1948-1950. Shortly after the completion of the two-year program, she adopted the stage name Anne Marno and soon found work in live television, a training ground which she found more helpful than any drama class. Bancroft made her professional debut on the anthology drama series, "Westinghouse Studio One" (CBS, 1948-1958) with "The Torrents of Spring" (1950). She also began a semi-regular on the serialized drama, "The Goldbergs" (CBS, 1949-1951). Naturally, Hollywood came calling, which led the actress to sign a studio player contract in 1952. Under orders from legendary producer, Darryl F. Zanuck, she adopted the surname of Bancroft from a list he provided. She later admitted that during her early years in California that she was more interested in becoming a movie star than an actress. The films in which Bancroft was cast were often forgettable at best, like "Demetrius and the Gladiator" (1954), "Gorilla at Large" (1954) and "The Girl in the Black Stockings" (1957).
Frustrated by her lack of progress out West, Bancroft returned to New York where she became a member of the Actors Studio and adopted The Method, which soon resulted in richer, more rewarding work. Under the guidance of director Arthur Penn, she delivered back-to-back Tony-winning stage performances, first opposite Henry Fonda in the two-character love story "Two for the Seesaw" (1958). With renewed vigor, Bancroft next threw herself into her next role, deftly adopting a strong Irish accent to play the indefatigable Annie Sullivan, who doggedly taught a blind, deaf and mute Helen Keller (Patty Duke) to communicate, in "The Miracle Worker" (1959). After earning her second Tony, she reprised the role in a rare instance of Hollywood using the original stage players, co-starring opposite Patty Duke in Arthur Penn's feature film version of "The Miracle Worker" (1962). Hailed by critics for her exemplary performance, Bancroft was bestowed with an Academy Award for Best Actress. It was during this time that Bancroft became entranced with comedy writer, Mel Brooks, whom she met after a previous marriage to a building contractor. The two were inseparable from the moment they met in 1961 and later married in August 1964, embarking on that rare Hollywood marriage that managed to stand the test of time while the two remained ever devoted to each other.
Despite the acclaim she earned from her Oscar-winning performance in "The Miracle Worker," Bancroft continued to divide her time between the stage and screen. After starring in a Broadway revival of "Mother Courage and Her Children" (1963), Bancroft offered a strong turn as an unhappily married woman in "The Pumpkin Eater" (1964) which earned her the Best Actress award at Cannes and a second Oscar nomination. In John Ford's "Seven Women" (1965), she replaced an ailing Patricia Neal as a physician who sacrifices herself to a Mongol warlord in order to save the residents of a religious mission. That same year, she was effective as a would-be suicide who contacts a call-in center looking for someone to talk to in "The Slender Thread" (1965), co-starring Sidney Poitier. But it was her next role as the icy seductress Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate" (1967) that forever cemented Bancroft into the pantheon of Hollywood's great actresses. Directed by Mike Nichols, the film followed Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), a young college graduate who embarks on an illicit affair with an older family friend (Bancroft), only to find true love in her daughter (Katharine Ross). Despite Bancroft being only five years older than Hoffman at the time of the film's release - she was 35 to his 30 - her performance as a woman twice his age onscreen earned the actress a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.
As her stature grew, Bancroft became more selective in her roles, eventually putting her acting career on the back burner in order to care for Maximilian, her only child with Mel Brooks. She headlined the well-received special "Annie, the Women in the Life of a Man" (CBS, 1970), which earned the actress an Emmy Award, giving her that rare feat of winning acting's three biggest awards. Returning to features, she was cast as Churchill's American-born mother in the middling biopic "Young Winston" (1972) and was teamed with Jack Lemmon in the screechy version of Neil Simon's "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" (1974). After being miscast as a grande dame in "The Hindenburg" (1975) and performing a cameo as herself in Brooks' "Silent Movie" (1976), Bancroft fared better as an aging ballerina facing old rivalries with her best friend (Shirley MacLaine) in the high entertaining, if soap opera-like drama "The Turning Point" (1977), for which she picked up a fourth Best Actress Academy Award nomination. Also that year, she returned to the small screen to play Mary Magdalene opposite the likes of Laurence Olivier, Michael York, Rod Steiger, Olivia Hussey and Robert Powell in the exemplary miniseries, "Jesus of Nazareth" (NBC, 1977). Back on Broadway, she played another historical figure; this time Golda Meir, in the Broadway play, "Golda" (1977), which earned the actress yet another Tony Award nomination.
Having trained at the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women, Bancroft made her debut behind the camera with "Fatso" (1980), a comedy-drama about an overweight man (Dom DeLuise) and his determination to diet. Working from her own script, she fashioned a rather uneven movie and under her own direction, offered one of her least successful performances as DeLuise's shrill sister. The film ultimately proved to be the only time she sat in the director's chair. Bouncing back, Bancroft offered a nicely formed cameo as actress Madge Kendal in David Lynch's version of "The Elephant Man" (1980) before starring opposite her husband in the comedy "To Be or Not To Be" (1983), in which they played the roles originally made famous by Jack Benny and Carole Lombard; that of a Polish husband-wife acting team who must flee their country after the Nazis invade by using an assortment of disguises. Though not one of Brooks' finer efforts, the remake of the Ernst Lubitsch 1942 classic earned Bancroft a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. She next delivered a whirlwind performance as Estelle Rolfe, an unconventional woman who learns she is dying, which leads her faithful son (Ron Silver) to try and fulfill her wish to meet reclusive actress Greta Garbo in "Garbo Talks" (1984).
In the stagey "Agnes of God" (1985), Bancroft played a combative mother superior who tries to protect a young nun (Meg Tilly) from a court-appointed psychiatrist (Jane Fonda) trying to uncover the truth after a baby winds up strangled to death. The role as the tough-talking nun earned her a fifth Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Bancroft next delivered a touching performance as the feisty writer who conducts a 20-year correspondence love affair with a London bookseller (Anthony Hopkins) in "84 Charing Cross Road" (1986), while offering moments of both high comedy and seriousness as Harvey Fierstein's nagging mother in "Torch Song Trilogy" (1988). After starring in the British television series "Freddie and Max" (ITV, 1990), Bancroft turned in an Emmy-nominated performance as the titular "Mrs. Cage" (PBS, 1992), a suburban matron who shocks everyone following her confession to murdering a shopper in a supermarket parking lot. Also that year, she earned a second Emmy nod for playing the mother of struggling playwright Eugene Jerome (Corey Parker) in "Neil Simon's Broadway Bound" (ABC, 1992).
As the 1990s developed, Bancroft made the transformation from leading star to character actress, which allowed her to deliver finely tuned, nuanced performances in a wide array of roles. Parts as diverse as an operative who polishes the finesse of a female assassin (Bridget Fonda) in "Point of No Return" (1993) or the pot-smoking Glady Joe in "How to Make an American Quilt" (1995) allowed her to display her various talents, but sometimes with limited results. Even a comic cameo as a gypsy - ironically named after the great screen star Maria Ouspenskaya - in Brooks' "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" (1995) merely hinted at her full potential. She did, however, have her moments as a ballsy senator in "G.I. Jane" (1997) and was delightfully theatrical as the Miss Haversham character in the modern day "Great Expectations" (1998). But neither project compared with her earlier work. It took television to offer Bancroft three-dimensional roles which reminded viewers just what she could do with meaty roles. In 1994, she offered a pair of performances that had critics raving. Under old-age makeup, Bancroft embodied the centenarian titular character in CBS' "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All," for which she earned another Emmy nomination. She also starred as a 66-year-old widow determined to return to work in the PBS remake of Paddy Chayefsky's "The Mother," perfectly delineating the character's mixture of fierceness and fragility.
Bancroft further excelled as the estranged grandmother of four children who trek cross-country to visit her in "Homecoming" (USA Network, 1996) and delivered an Emmy-winning turn as a white woman who slowly warms to an abandoned black girl (Kimberlee Peterson) and her siblings in the fact-based "Deep in My Heart" (CBS, 1999). While the actress periodically spoke of retirement, she maintained a steady output of work, offering scene-stealing performances as an overbearing Jewish mother in "Keeping the Faith" (2000) and a glamorous expatriate in 1930s Italy in "Up at the Villa" (2000). She continued to deliver awards-worthy performances on the small screen with an Emmy-nominated performance as the feisty mother of real-life Jewish journalist, Ruth Gruber (Natasha Richardson), who helped shepherd almost one thousand Holocaust survivors from war-torn Europe to temporary asylum in the United States in the miniseries "Haven" (CBS, 2001). The following year, Bancroft returned to Broadway for the first time since 1981, appearing in Edward Albee's "Occupant," inspired by the success of her husband's "The Producers," which he had turned into a stage show at her suggestion. The two later appeared on an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (HBO, 2000- ), spoofing the monster success of Brooks' show by hiring Larry David (Larry David) to play Max Bialystock in an effort to sabotage the show.
Bancroft went on to play what ultimately became her final dramatic performance as the aging contessa who procures a gigolo (Olivier Martinez) to enliven the life of a widowed former Broadway star (Helen Mirren) in the small screen adaptation of the Tennessee Williams' novella, "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" (Showtime, 2003). Then on June 6, 2005, Bancroft died of uterine cancer while at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital. She was just 73. The news, however, was announced two days later and shocked many who remained unaware, thank to Bancroft's intensely private life. Regardless, her death was mourned by many who had worked with her over the years, including Patty Duke, Arthur Penn and Dustin Hoffman. While haunted throughout her career by her performance as Mrs. Robinson, to whom she was indelibly linked and fought tirelessly to cast off, Bancroft left behind a gallery of complex and intriguing characters, performed throughout her long and venerable career. As for Mrs. Robinson, Bancroft understood the character intimately: "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." It was something Bancroft would never have to face herself. In both her art and her life, the actress was extraordinary.
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Cast (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Music (Feature Film)
Dance (Feature Film)
Cast (Special)
Cast (TV Mini-Series)
Life Events
1950
Made professional debut as Anne Marno on TV in "Studio One" production, "The Torrents of Spring"
1950
Acted in local dramatics; appeared at Neighborhood Playhouse where she was spotted by TV producer and given starring role; acted as Anne Marno; appeared on more than fifty TV shows in two years
1950
Appeared as a semi-regular in the TV series, "The Goldbergs", billed as Anne Marno
1952
Film acting debut in "Don't Bother to Knock", billed as Anne Bancroft
1958
Returned to New York stage; made Broadway debut in "Two For the Seesaw", directed by Arthur Penn; won first Tony Award
1959
Became a Broadway star with her award-winning turn as Annie Sullivan in "The Miracle Worker", also directed Penn; received second Tony Award
1962
Returned to films after a five-year absence, recreating her stage role in "The Miracle Worker", helmed by Penn; received Best Actress Oscar
1963
Had title role in Broadway production of "Mother Courage and Her Children"
1965
Delivered a strong turn as a would-be suicide in "The Slender Thread"
1967
Became a cultural icon playing Mrs. Robinson, who seduces her daughter's boyfriend, in "The Graduate"; earned third Best Actress Oscar nomination
1967
Played Regina Giddings in Broadway revival of "The Little Foxes"
1970
Starred in the acclaimed CBS variety special "Annie: the Women in the Life of a Man"; won Emmy
1972
Cast as Jennie Jerome Churchill in the biopic "Young Winston"
1974
Hosted the ABC variety special "Annie and the Hoods"
1976
First screen teaming with husband Mel Brooks, a cameo doing the tango in "Silent Movie"
1977
Appeared as Mary Magdalene in the NBC miniseries "Jesus of Nazareth", directed by Franco Zeffirelli
1977
Offered a fine turn as an aging ballerina in "The Turning Point"; garnered fourth Oscar nomination
1977
Portrayed Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the stage drama "Golda"; received Tony nomination
1980
Feature film directorial and screenwriting debut, "Fatso"; also co-starred
1980
Essayed role of actress Madge Kendal in "The Elephant Man", produced by Brooks' company and directed by David Lynch
1981
Appeared as a musician stricken with a degenerative disease in the Broadway play "Duet for One", loosely inspired by the life of Jacqueline du Pre
1982
Co-starred as the title character's mother in the NBC miniseries "Marco Polo"
1983
Teamed with Brooks as stars of the remake of "To Be or Not to Be", directed by Alan Johnson
1985
Received fifth Best Actress Academy Award nomination as the mother superior in "Agnes of God"
1986
Played Sissy Spacek's parent in the screen version of Marsha Norman's play "'night Mother"
1987
Starred opposite Anthony Hopkins in "84 Charing Cross Road"
1988
Played Harvey Fierstein's nagging mother in "Torch Song Trilogy"
1990
Starred in the British TV series "Max & Freddie"
1992
Delivered two Emmy-nominated performances: as a woman who has confessed to committing murder in the PBS drama "Mrs. Cage" and as the playwright's mother (who once danced with George Raft) in the ABC adaptation of "Neil Simon's Broadway Bound"
1992
Made cameo appearance as a gypsy woman who dispenses "Love Potion No. 9"
1994
Starred as an elderly widow determined to resume working in the garment industry in the remake of Paddy Chayefsky's "The Mother" (PBS)
1994
Earned an Emmy nomination for playing the centenarian title character in "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All" (CBS)
1995
Appeared as another gypsy (named Madame Ouspenskaya) in Mel Brooks' "Dracula: Dead and Loving It"
1997
Cast as a US Senator championing the cause of women in the military in "G.I. Jane"
1998
Delivered a juicy, highly theatrical turn as Miss Dinsmoor, the Miss Haversham character, in the modern day version of "Great Expectations"
1998
Voiced the Queen in "Antz"
1999
Received Emmy Award for the based-on-fact drama "Deep in My Heart" (CBS), played a woman reunited with her daughter, a black child that was the product of rape
2000
Offered a scene-stealing turn as a wealthy expatriate in 1930s Italy in "Up at the Villa"
2000
Co-starred in Edward Norton's directorial debut "Keeping the Faith", playing Ben Stiller's mother
2001
Had cameo as a con artist in "Heartbreakers"
2001
Played featured role in the CBS miniseries "Haven"; received Emmy nomination
2002
Returned to the stage acting in the premiere of Edward Albee's "The Occupant", a play produced Off-Broadway that profiled artist Louise Nevelson; only appeared in six performances before contracting pneumonia and withdrawing from the production
2003
Co-starred with Helen Mirren in the Showitme television feature "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone"; received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Television Movie
2004
Received a SAG nomination for best actress in a Television Movie or Miniseries for her work in "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone"
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Trailer
Family
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
Inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame (1992).
"She's made out of heavy-duty Bronx material. She can do anything, She could play Queen Victoria in a minute. She's a magnificent actress in every possible respect."---director Arthur Penn quoted in the Los Angeles Times, August 10, 1997.
"I'm grateful for it. It was the greatest school that one could have gone to. You learn to be concentrated and focused."---Bancroft on her work in live television, to the Los Angeles Times, August 10, 1997.
"I retire after every project. Then somehow there's always something that pulls me out of retirement ... "---Bancroft quoted in press material for the USA Network movie "Homecoming"
"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."---Bancroft complained to a 2003 interviewer, Cnn.com, June 8, 2005.
"Her combination of brains, humor, frankness and sense were unlike any other artist. Her beauty was constantly shifting with her roles, and because she was a consummate actress she changed radically for every part."---Mike Nichols, who directed her in "The Graduate," said in a statement released by a publicist. Cnn.com, June 8, 2005.
