Anne Bancroft, who won an Oscar and a Tony for portraying Helen Keller’s teacher – but was better known as the seductress Mrs. Robinson of “The Graduate” – has died, a spokesman for her husband, producer Mel Brooks, said yesterday.
Bancroft, 73, succumbed to uterine cancer on Monday at Mount Sinai Hospital, he said.
Bancroft was born Anna Maria Italiano in The Bronx and grew up on Seddon Street and McClay Avenue. She recalled scrawling, “I want to be an actress” on a fence when she was 9, and got her start in television fresh out of Columbus HS.
She became a star on Broadway, first opposite Henry Fonda in “Two for the Seesaw” in 1958, and then as Annie Sullivan, Keller’s teacher, in the play and 1962 film “The Miracle Worker.”
But it was her Oscar-nominated role as Mrs. Robinson, mother of Dustin Hoffman’s girlfriend in 1967’s “The Graduate,” that is best remembered.
“Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?” asked Hoffman, in his first major film role.
“I am not trying to seduce you,” she replied. “Would you like me to seduce you? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
Her talent seduced “Graduate” director Mike Nichols, who said yesterday Bancroft’s “combination of brains, humor, frankness and sense were unlike any other artist.”
“Her beauty was constantly shifting with her roles, and because she was a consummate actress, she changed radically for every part,” he said.
Bancroft earned other Oscar nominations for “The Pumpkin Eater” (1964), “The Turning Point” (1977) and “Agnes of God” (1985).
But it was “The Graduate” role that stuck in people’s minds – to her regret.
“I am quite surprised that, with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about ‘The Miracle Worker,’ ” she complained in a 2003 interview.
But Patty Duke, who co-starred with Bancroft as young Helen Keller on both stage and screen, remembered the power of the play.
“There aren’t superlatives enough in the world” to describe what it was like to work with Bancroft, she said yesterday, adding “on most nights we performed, it felt as if we were one.”
Bancroft met Brooks more than 40 years ago, when he visited the set of “The Perry Como Show.”
“I chatted with [him] between scenes,” she said. “Then he started following me around after that, not letting me out of his sight. Then I did the same and didn’t let him out of my sight.”
Bancroft appeared in three of Brooks’ comedies: “Silent Movie,” a remake of “To Be or Not to Be” and “Dracula: Dead and Loving It.”
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Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson
* Born Sept. 17, 1931 in The Bronx
* Broadway debut – opposite Henry Fonda in “Two for the Seesaw” in 1958
* Best roles – as Helen Keller’s teacher, winning Tony and Oscar in “The Miracle Worker,” and as Mrs. Robinson in “The Graduate”
* Other awards – a second Tony and four Oscar nominations.
* Married Mel Brooks in 1964
* Other memorable roles – Winston Churchill’s mother in TV’s “Young Winston”; Golda Meir in “Golda” on Broadway; Mary Magdalene in Franco Zeffirelli’s miniseries “Jesus of Nazareth.”