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`The Graduate' Star Bancroft Dies at 73 LOS ANGELES - Anne Bancroft, notoriously known for playing the seductive Mrs. Robinson in 1967's "The Graduate," has died at the age of 73. The Oscar-winning actress, who was married to producer/actor Mel Brooks, died of cancer, a spokesman for Brooks said on Tuesday, according to the AP. The Italian-American Anna Maria Louisa Italiano was born on Sept. 17, 1931 in New York. She began studying acting and dancing at the tender age of four, and by the '50s she began her television career, billed as Anne Marno. She also signed on with 20th Century Fox Films around this time and appeared in a string of westerns. http://ads.zap2it.com/RealMedia/ads...s/story@Middle1She took a break from Hollywood to take to the stage, where she won Tonys for her starring turns in "Two for the Seesaw" in 1958 and as Annie Sullivan in "The Miracle Worker." She reprised the role for the big screen in 1962 and won the best actress Oscar opposite Patty Duke, who played Helen Keller. In 1964, the same year she starred in drama "The Pumpkin Eater," she married filmmaker/comedian Mel Brooks, and later appeared in several of his films such as "Silent Movie," "Blazing Saddles" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It." She starred opposite him in the remake of "Lubitsch's To Be or Not To Be" in 1983. Her pivotal role helping her transition from drama to comedy was as the married "older woman" Mrs. Robinson, who seduces her daughter's friend Benjamin Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman. The role earned her another Oscar nomination. Her other film credits include "7 Women," "The Turning Point," "Agnes of God," "Torch Song Trilogy," "Honeymoon in Vegas," "Love Potion No. 9," "How to Make an American Quilt," "G.I. Jane," "Great Expectations," "Antz," "Keeping the Faith" and "Heartbreakers." She recently lent her voice to the animated independent fantasy "Delgo," which has yet to set a release date. She is survived by her husband, their son Max and grandson |
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Arthur Penn, who directed her in both of those plays and in the film "The Miracle Worker," told The New York Times: "More happens in her face in 10 seconds than happens in most women's faces in 10 years." http://www.southcoasttoday.com/dail...6-09-05/tab.gif That was certainly the case in "The Graduate," where as the bored wife of a profoundly conventional suburbanite, she boldly seduces Benjamin Braddock, the Hoffman character. The plot grows emotionally hazardous when he later falls in love with her daughter (Katharine Ross). A still photo of Benjamin regarding Mrs. Robinson's leg in a nylon stocking became an icon of movie imagery. http://www.southcoasttoday.com/dail...6-09-05/tab.gif Although much was made of the generation gap, Bancroft was only 36 when the movie was made, and Hoffman was 30. Revisiting the movie in 1997, I realized that it played completely differently for me than it had 30 years earlier. Then I had found Mrs. Robinson "magnificently sexy, shrewish, and self-possessed enough to make the seduction convincing." http://www.southcoasttoday.com/dail...6-09-05/tab.gif After the 1997 viewing I wrote: "Well, here IS to you, Mrs. Robinson: You've survived your defeat at the hands of that insufferable creep, Benjamin, and emerged as the most sympathetic and intelligent character in 'The Graduate.'" http://www.southcoasttoday.com/dail...6-09-05/tab.gif I added: "Mrs. Robinson is the only person in the movie who is not playing old tapes. She is bored by a drone of a husband, she drinks too much, she seduces Benjamin not out of lust but out of kindness or desperation. Makeup and lighting are used to make Anne Bancroft look older. ... But there is a scene where she is drenched in a rainstorm; we can see her face clearly and without artifice, and she is a great beauty. She is also sardonic, satirical and articulate -- the only person in the movie you would want to have a conversation with." http://www.southcoasttoday.com/dail...6-09-05/tab.gif I ran into Bancroft and Brooks not long after writing that re-review, and told her of my conviction that Mrs. Robinson was the most intriguing character in the movie. |