The Miracle Worker (1962)

The classy, award-winning actress Anne Bancroft, born Anna Maria Louise Italiano in New York, passed away on Monday evening, June 7th 2005 in New York. In 1962 she won the best actress Oscar as Annie Sullivan, the poor-sighted teacher of Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker.

Patty Duke played the role of Helen Keller.

Arthur Penn, the person Bancroft claimed had the greatest impact on her career, directed The Miracle Worker.

Anne Bancroft was also awarded the Tony and a New York Drama Critics Award, for creating the role on Broadway of Annie Sullivan, the teacher of Keller, who was born deaf and blind.

She won her first Tony opposite Henry Fonda in the theater production of Two for the Seesaw.

Anne was nominated five times for Best Actress. Her other Academy nominations:

The Pumpkin Eater (1964);

The Graduate (1967);

The Turning Point (1977) co-starring Shirley MacLaine and Mikhail Baryshnikov;

Agnes of God (1985) co-starring Jane Fonda.

Anne Bancroft became most well known for her role as the seductive Mrs. Robinson in Mike Nichols' 1967 comedy The Graduate, co-starring Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross.

Ms. Bancroft died at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York of uterine cancer.

John Barlow, a spokesperson for her husband, Mel Brooks, said Tuesday that Anne was 73.

Mel Brooks & Anne Bancroft

Anna Maria Louisa Italiano was born Sept. 17, 1931, in the Bronx to Italian immigrant parents.

Her father, Michael, was a patternmaker, and her mother, Mildred was a telephone operator.

By the time Anne was 2 years old she was learning to sing and dance.

At seventeen years of age, she began her acting studies at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

A graduate of the Academy in Manhattan, she was signed on by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1952.

The studio gave her a choice of names; she picked Bancroft "because it sounded dignified." Her nickname? Annie.

From July 1st 1953 - February 1957, she was married to Martin May, a building contractor. Their marriage ended in divorce.

On December 21st, 1959 Anne appeared on the cover of Time Magazine.

In 1964, Anne Bancroft married award-winning comedian/filmmaker/musician The Producers creator, Mel Brooks -- born Melvin Kaminsky.

They met on the set of a TV talk show. Mel later paid a woman who worked on the show to tell him which restaurant Anne was going to eat at that night so he could "accidentally" bump into her again and strike up a conversation.

In 1972, Bancroft had a son, Maximilian Brooks.

Max, previously a writer for Saturday Night Live, is the author of The Zombie Survival Guide.

Anne is survived by her husband, Mel, her son, Max, her daughter-in-law, Michelle, and a grandson, Henry Michael Brooks.

During her early years in Hollywood, she appeared on screen in Don't Bother to Knock with Marilyn Monroe and Richard Widmark.

In her other early films she co-starred with Cornel Wilde, Susan Hayward and Victor Mature.

In 1980 Bancroft made her debut as a director/screenwriter in 'Fatso', with comic Dom DeLuise.

The 1984 remake of the 1942 comedy classic To Be Or Not To Be was one of a number of collaborations with her husband.

In 1984, she was in Garbo Talks directed by Sidney Lumet.

In the 1990s, she appeared in more Hollywood hits, such as How to Make an American Quilt co-starring Winona Ryder and Ellen Burstyn, G.I. Jane co-starring Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen, the Jodie Foster-directed Christmas comedy Home for the Holidays co-starring Holly Hunter, and Great Expectations (1998) co-starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow, Keeping the Faith (2000) co-starring Edward Norton, Ben Stiller and Jenna Elfman and Heartbreakers (2001) co-starring Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Gene Hackman.

In the '80s, she also appeared with Anthony Hopkins in 84 Charing Cross Road, and with Matthew Broderick and Harvey Fierstein in Torch Song Trilogy.

In a 1992 interview with The Times' Bernard Weinraub she admitted to taking parts "even if they are one page," because "there are very few good scripts, even for Julia Roberts."

In 1998, she lent her voice as "The Queen" in the Dreamworks animated film, Antz.

In 1998, she also narrated a cancer video called Living with Cancer: A Message of Hope.

In 1999, Bancroft received a Best Supporting Actress Emmy for her role in the TV-movie 'Deep in My Heart.'

In 1999, she also became the fifteenth performer to win the Triple Crown of acting. An Oscar: Best Actress, 'The Miracle Worker' (1962), Tonys: Best Supporting Actress-Play, 'Two for the Seesaw' (1958) & Best Actress-Play, 'The Miracle Worker' (1960), and an Emmy: Best Supporting Actress-Miniseries/Movie, 'Deep in My Heart' (1999).

Anne Bancroft & Dustin Hoffman in 'The Graduate'

In 2003, Bancroft complained to an interviewer:

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.

The Graduate has become an industry unto its own.

Rob Reiner is presently directing the upcoming movie Rumour Has It, in which Jennifer Aniston plays a woman who learns that her family was the inspiration for the story of The Graduate. Aniston's character believes she might owe her existence to its famous seduction.

Meanwhile, a sequel to The Graduate may take place, but not until the original author has passed away. Charles Webb, 65, who wrote The Graduate in 1963, has declared that the sequel Home School, which he completed two months ago, will not be published until after his death. He has willed the rights to his sons, John and David. The 1967 original has in its lifetime grossed $104,642,560 to-date. Webb sold the film and theatrical rights for $35,000 and missed out on any share of the movie’s 60 million initial $154,000 gross or future residuals.

Anne received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in television. You can find the star at 6368 Hollywood Boulevard.

On September 17, 2004, Anne turned 73.

Tomorrow, those who attend a theater production on Broadway, will likely witness a dimming of the marquees in Bancroft's honor before "the show goes on."

Thank you Anna Maria Louise for your beautiful lifetime of work on tv, the stage and the big screen, as well as behind the stage.

Here's to you Mrs. Robinson, and all the other wonderful characters you played during your lifetime.

Inspire & Be Inspired.

Here's to healthy, adventuresome, soulful, "miracle working" living!

~ Jennifer Carolyn King, Rugged Elegance, LLC