Anne Bancroft

Anna Maria Louisa Italiano (Bronx, New York, September 17, 1931 - Manhattan, New York, June 6, 2005), known professionally as Anne Bancroft, was an American actress, director, screenwriter and singer associated with the Method school, having studied under the guidance of Lee Strasberg. Respected for her skill and versatility, Bancroft was recognized for her film, stage and television work, obtaining an Oscar, two Golden Globes, three BAFTAs, two Tonys and two Emmys, among other awards and nominations.

After her film debut in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) and a series of supporting roles in the 1950s, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her lead role in The Miracle Worker (1962) as Anne Sullivan, teacher to teenage Helen Keller, reprising the role that had already earned her a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play a few years before. One of her best-known roles was that of the seductive Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967), a performance that she later said had come to overshadow the rest of the work. her.

Bancroft received several other Oscar nominations and continued in leading roles until the late 1980s, notable being roles in The Turning Point (1977) and Agnes of God (1985). In 1987, he starred with Anthony Hopkins in the film 84 Charing Cross Road , which earned him his third BAFTA. She appeared in several films directed or produced by her second husband, comedian Mel Brooks, including the award-winning drama The Elephant Man (1980), as well as the comedies To Be or Not to Be (1983) and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995).

Early Years

Anna Maria Louisa Italiano was born in the Bronx, New York, the second of three daughters born to Mildred DiNapoli (1908–2010), a telephone operator, and Michael G. Italiano (1905–2001), a printmaker. clothing.

Bancroft's parents were the children of Italian immigrants. In an interview, she stated that her family was originally from Muro Lucano, in the province of Potenza. She was raised Catholic and her early years were spent in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx, later moving to 1580 Avenida Zerega and studying from Christopher Columbus High School in 1948. She later attended the HB Studio, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Actors Studio, and the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women at the University of California, Los Angeles. After appearing in several live-action television dramas under the name Anne Marno, she was told to change her last name, as she was "too ethnic for movies"; so she chose Bancroft's "because she sounded dignified."

At that time, in 1953, Bancroft married lawyer Martin May, from whom she separated after two years, and divorced in 1957.

Career

The Miracle Worker

He made his film debut in 1952, the year in which he signed a six-year contract with 20th Century Fox studios. The roles he had to play were not interesting, so Bancroft constantly traveled to New York to act in the theater whenever possible. She made her debut in 1958 on Broadway in the role of Gittel Mosca, a love-struck woman from Bronx, opposite Henry Fonda in the play Two for the Seesaw, written by William Gibson and directed by Arthur Penn. For the role of Gittel, Bancroft won the Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Play.

Bancroft next to Patty Duke in the production of the work The Miracle Worker.
Photography, Broadway, March 28, 1960.

In 1960, thanks to the multi-award winning play The Miracle Worker, also by Gibson and directed by Penn, she won the Tony for Best Leading Actress in a Play. In it, she played Anne Sullivan, a young teacher who teaches communication to a deafblind girl named Helen Keller.The success of the play led to its being adapted into a low-budget film version in 1962. Penn, the film's director, insisted that Bancroft reprise the role of her, even though United Artists executives wanted a big-name actress in her place. For her performance, Bancroft would win the Oscar for Best Actress. Bancroft did not attend the ceremony, as she was starring in the play Mother Courage and Her Children, so Joan Crawford accepted the award on her behalf. Óscar and then presented it to her after the end of one of the performances of Mother Courage.

Bancroft is one of ten actors to have won both an Academy Award and a Tony Award for the same role.

In 1961, Bancroft met Mel Brooks at a rehearsal for Perry Como's variety show Kraft Music Hall. Bancroft and Brooks were married on August 5, 1964, at the Office of Married in Manhattan, near New York City Hall, and remained married until his death.

In 1965, Bancroft co-starred in John Whiting's The Devils, opposite Jason Robards, in which she played a medieval nun obsessed with a priest. Produced by Alexander H. Cohen and directed by Michael Cacoyannis, it was performed 63 times.

That same year, Bancroft would receive a second Academy Award nomination for his performance in The Pumpkin Eater.

The Graduate

Bancroft's breakthrough role was as Mrs. Robinson in Mike Nichols's The Graduate (1967), for which she received a third Academy Award nomination. In the film, she played an unhappily married woman who seduces the son of her husband's business partner, a young college graduate, played by Dustin Hoffman. In the film, Hoffman's character later falls in love with his daughter. Bancroft was ambivalent about appearing in The Graduate, stating in various interviews that the role overshadowed his previous work. Despite her character becoming an archetypal "older woman", Bancroft was only six years older than Hoffman.

A CBS television special, Annie: the Women in the Life of a Man (1970), brought Bancroft an Emmy Award for her singing and acting.

1970s and 1980s

Their only child, Maximillian "Max" Brooks, was born on May 22, 1972. Two years later, she made her second television special, called Annie and The Hoods, where her husband participated as a guest star; and made a cameo appearance. Uncredited in the film Blazing Saddles, directed by Brooks.

In 1977, she starred opposite Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point, a film that earned both actresses Academy Award nominations. In 1980, she made her writing-directing debut on Fatso, in which she starred opposite Dom DeLuise.

The relationship between Bancroft and her husband Mel Brooks led them to act three times on screen, and to perform collaborations outside of it, especially in the productions of the second.
Photography, Festival de Cannes, 1991.

Bancroft was the original choice to play Joan Crawford in the 1981 film Mommie Dearest, but she withdrew from the project and was replaced by Faye Dunaway. She was also a lead actress proposed for the role of Aurora Greenway in 1983's Terms of Endearment, but declined so she could act in the remake of To Be or Not to Be with her husband. She would finally receive her last Oscar nomination for the film Agnes of God, and in 1987 she would obtain the BAFTA for Best Actress for her performance in 84 Charing Cross Road, produced by Brooks as a gift to Bancroft.

Last years

Since the late 1980s, Bancroft took on only supporting film roles, including the films New York Trilogy (1988), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Love Potion No. 9 (1992), Malice (1993), Point of No Return (1993), Home for the Holidays (1995), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), G.I. Jane (1997), Great Expectations (1998), Keeping the Faith (2000) and Heartbreakers (2001). In 1998, he lent his voice to the animated film Antz.

Her last appearance was playing herself in a 2004 episode of the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm and her latest project was the animated feature Delgo, released in 2008 and dedicated to his memory.

He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6368 Hollywood Boulevard for his work on television. At the time of his star's installation in 1960, he had recently appeared in several television series Bancroft was also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 1992.

In April 2005, two months before her death, Bancroft became a grandmother when her daughter-in-law Michelle gave birth to a son, Henry Michael Brooks.

Death

Anne Bancroft died of uterine cancer at age 73 on June 6, 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. Her death shocked many, including some of her friends, as Bancroft had not disclosed details of her illness. Her body was buried in the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, near her parents, Mildred (who died in April 2010, five years after Anne) and Michael Italiano. A white marble monument with a weeping angel adorns the tomb.

In a 2010 interview, Brooks credited Bancroft as the guiding force behind his involvement in the development of The Producers and Young Frankenstein as musicals. In the same interview, he said of their first meeting in 1961:

From that day until his death on June 5, 2005, we were beaten.

Theater

Plays performed on Broadway include:

• Two for the Seesaw (1959)
• The Miracle Worker (1959)
• Mother Courage and Her Children (1963)
• The Devils (1965)
• The Little Foxes (1967)
• A Cry of Players (1968)
• Golda (1977)
• Duet for One (1981)

Filmography

Awards

Oscar Awards

Golden Globe Awards

BAFTA Awards

Cannes International Film Festival

San Sebastian Film Festival