final credits - anne bancroft
and here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know
"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. ... aren't you?"
The movie was "The Graduate." Its poster became an icon. The song was a huge hit ... and the line of dialogue, and the times it represented, will forever be linked to just one actress: Anne Bancroft. She died June 6, 2005 at the age of 73 from uterine cancer.
In 1967, director Mike Nichols created the cinematic cultural touchstone of a generation. Passing over the likes of Doris Day and Jeanne Moreau, he chose Bancroft to deliver what would soon become one of the most famous lines in the movies when her character demanded that her daughter's boyfriend get into bed with her.
Dustin Hoffman, then just six years younger than Bancroft, played Benjamin Braddock, the nervous young suitor who earlier in the evening had received the single word "Plastics" as career advice. Their dalliance on screen provided the visual epitaph to a Hollywood moral production code that had lasted four decades. It was the sexual awakening of a younger generation, and a sure sign that something was wrong in suburbia ... and we never even learned Mrs. Robinson's first name.
The song "Mrs. Robinson" was written and performed by Simon and Garfunkel, and it cemented their place in pop history early in their career. Ironically, the lyrics were written prior to the song's use in the film. The leg on the poster did not belong to Bancroft, but to then unknown actress Linda Gray, who later found fame in the town of "Dallas" as Sue-Ellen Ewing. "The Graduate" earned Nichols an Oscar for his directorial work, and nominations were awarded to Hoffman (actor), Bancroft (actress), Katharine Ross (supporting actress), Robert Surtees (cinematography), and Buck Henry (with Calder Willingham) for adapted screenplay.
Bancroft's friends advised her not to take on the role of Mrs. Robinson "because it was all about sex with a younger man." However, it was her intuition as an actress that drew her to playing a character stifled by living a normal life with an average family. While it may be her best-known work, it wasn't Bancroft's favourite performance. Her personal high-water mark came nearly a decade earlier.
Anne Bancroft was born Anna Maria Louise Italiano. After 20th Century Fox noticed her work in the early days of television (appearing in 50 shows in two years), they signed her and offered a number of more saleable names. She chose Bancroft "because it sounded dignified." She made her film debut in the 1952 Marilyn Monroe thriller "Don’t Bother to Knock."
Bancroft then made fifteen near-forgettable movies for Fox save one: Jacques Tourneur's 1956 film noir entry "Nightfall." In 1958, after her Hollywood contract lapsed, she returned to her native New York, and was suggested by Richard Basehart to director Arthur Penn to audition for the Broadway play "Two for the Seesaw," playing opposite Henry Fonda. She won the role ... and a Tony award.
The following year, Bancroft signed on to the role of Anne Sullivan, the poor-sighted teacher of the deaf and blind Helen Keller, played by a then 12-year-old Patty Duke in the play "The Miracle Worker." The show won Bancroft her second Tony award. In 1962, both Bancroft and Duke reprised their roles for a movie version of the play, earning Bancroft her only Academy Award, for best actress. Duke won an Oscar for her supporting role.
The night the Academy Awards were presented in 1963, Bancroft was performing on Broadway in "Mother Courage," and her Oscar was accepted by Joan Crawford. Crawford presented the Oscar to her on stage a week later. Bancroft would be further nominated in the best actress category for 1965's "The Pumpkin Eater," "The Graduate," 1978's "The Turning Point," and 1986's "Agnes Of God."
After a three-year marriage to builder Martin May, Bancroft met comedian-director-producer Mel Brooks in 1956. During a rehearsal for the Perry Como television show, a voice from offstage called: "I'm Mel Brooks." The two fell instantly in love, but did not marry until 1964. When Mel told his Jewish mother he was marrying an Italian girl, she said: "Bring her over. I'll be in the kitchen - with my head in the oven." Bancroft appeared in three of Brooks' comedies: "Silent Movie," "To Be or Not to Be" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It." She was the one who suggested Brooks turn his film "The Producers" into a stage musical.
After "The Graduate," Bancroft assumed a variety of roles. She appeared as Winston Churchill's American mother in TV's "Young Winston"; as Golda Meir in "Golda" on stage; Mary Magdalene in Franco Zeffirelli's mini-series "Jesus of Nazareth"; actress Madge Kindle in "The Elephant Man" (produced by Brooks); Anthony Hopkins' pen pal in "84 Charing Cross Road"; and a centenarian for the TV version of "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All." She also provided the voice of the queen in the 1998 animated film "Antz."
In 2002 she returned to Broadway for the first time in two decades, appearing in Edward Albee's "Occupant." The play's scheduled run had to be cancelled when Bancroft contracted pneumonia during previews after just six performances. Her final project, an animated fantasy film called "Delgo," has an unspecified 2005 release date.
As an actress, Bancroft worked hard to get beneath the surface and to inhabit roles as deeply as possible. While rehearsing for her role as the young Helen Keller's teacher in "The Miracle Worker," she put adhesive tape over her eyes to better understand what it was like to be blind. She learned sign language and spent time at a home for the visually impaired. She and Duke became so proficient that they told jokes to each other backstage with their hands. While preparing for "Golda," she traveled to Israel and got to know and observe Meir. In most of her films, Bancroft habitually removed an earring before answering a telephone.
Bancroft appeared in John Ford's last feature film, 1966's "Seven Women." In 1973, she was offered the role of the mother in "The Exorcist" but had to turn it down because she was pregnant with her only child, Maximilian. She was a leading choice to play another mother, in 1983's "Terms of Endearment." In 1999, she became the fifteenth performer to win the Triple Crown of acting. Oscar, Tony, and Emmy (awarded for Best Supporting Actress in 1999's mini-series "Deep in My Heart."
Bancroft's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is for her work in television. Never a big name star, she was always true to her craft. She will always be cited for the roles that she played.
At the age of 9, she wrote on the fence behind her family's house in the Bronx, "I want to be an actress." And that's just how we will remember her.