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Vikramdeep Johal on Anne Bancroft and her unforgettable roles in The Miracle Worker and The Graduate
Talking about the character that made him a star, Sean Connery once said, "I have always hated that damn James Bond. I’d like to kill him." This candid remark came from his failure to shake off the 007 tag, despite his best efforts. What Bond did to Connery, Mrs Robinson did to Anne Bancroft. The distinguished screen, stage and TV actress, who died on June 6, won great acclaim for portraying a middle-aged married woman who seduces a young man in The Graduate (1967). "This is your first time, isn’t it?" a husky-voiced Mrs Robinson asked Benjamin, a gawky graduate played by Dustin Hoffman. Bancroft superbly brought out the selfishness and insecurity of a woman who treats a young man as a sex object and can’t tolerate losing him to her daughter. It goes to her credit that she was able to make the character now attractive, now repulsive, now pitiable. The role brought Bancroft enduring popularity, but it eclipsed her other fine performances. "I’m just a little dismayed that people aren’t beyond it yet," she said a couple of years ago. She found it surprising that virtually nobody talked about her work in The Miracle Worker (1962), in which she played Annie Sullivan, the courageous woman who takes up the challenge of tutoring blind-and-deaf Helen Keller. (The movie inspired Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black, with Amitabh Bachchan as a male Annie). Bancroft won an Academy Award for her performance, pipping veteran actresses Bette Davis (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?) and Katherine Hepburn (Long Day’s Journey into Night). She was nominated for the best actress Oscar four more times — The Graduate; The Pumpkin Eater (1964), in which she played a woman harassed by her eight children and a philandering husband; The Turning Point (1977), as an ageing ballerina; and Agnes of God (1985), in which she was cast as the Mother Superior struggling to protect her protege’s innocence.
It was during the making of The Pumpkin Eater that she met comedy film-maker Mel Brooks. The two got married in 1964, and she went on to play roles in Brooks’ comedies Silent Movie and To Be or Not to Be. Bancroft hardly got any meaty film roles in the past decade or so, but she delighted viewers with cameos in Great Expectations (as a tongue-in-cheek Miss Havisham), Heartbreakers and as the queen’s voice in the animation hit, Antz. Her work in television during this period was much more rewarding, with the TV movie, Deep in my Heart (1999), fetching her an Emmy Award. Her acting career thus came full circle as it was the small screen which had first given her a break. She made her TV debut in The Goldbergs (1950) in the name of Anna Marno. Born on September 17, 1931, to Italian immigrant parents in New York’s Bronx district, Bancroft’s original name was Anna Maria Louisa. She was bitten by the acting bug quite early and played Papa Bear in Goldilocks at primary school. She made her film debut as Anne Bancroft in Don’t Bother to Knock (1952). Her portrayal of a cabaret singer didn’t get much attention, mainly due to the presence of a star named Marilyn Monroe. She remained on the fringes of Hollywood during the fifties, working mostly in second-rate movies. Even her marriage in 1954 to building contractor Martin May ended after three years. With her personal and professional life in disarray, Bancroft fled to Broadway. She took the theatre world by storm, winning Tony Awards for Two for the Seesaw (1958) and The Miracle Worker (1959). The latter was such a success that she was the first choice to play Annie Sullivan in the film version. However, that was not the case with The Graduate. Mrs Robinson’s role was first offered to French actress Jeanne Moreau. Her answer was no as she thought she was too young for the part. Doris Day, too, turned it down. The third choice was Anne Bancroft. The rest is history, which proved to be a boon as well as a bane for her. |
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