Anne Bancroft Trivia
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updates.
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Arthur Penn declared
that Anne Bancroft was the greatest actress he had ever worked with. |
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The Slender Thread
trivia (thanks to Jody H.):
- The only other time
AB and Sidney Poitier were together onscreen (even though they don’t
share a single frame in the film) was at the 1963 Academy Awards
when she presented him with his Best Actor Oscar for “Lilies of
the Field.” Poitier says that AB leaned over and whispered in his
ear, “Enjoy it, it doesn’t last long.” |
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Both Anne and Colleen
Dewhurst turned down the role of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest specifically because they found it
anti-feminist and downright misogynistic. |
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According to her
autobiography, before Ellen Burstyn was given the role of Alice
Hyatt in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Anne Bancroft was
attached to the project. |
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Grace Kelly and Audrey
Hepburn were considered for the role of Emma in The Turning Point. |
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For her role in The
Turning Point, Anne received ballet training from Lawrence
Rosenberg, Sarma Lapeniek Rosenberg, Sono Osato and Nora Kaye. |
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Anne refused Francis
Ford Coppola's offer to star as the Corleone family matriarch in The
Godfather. Morgana King got the part. |
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Anne's husband, Mel
Brooks, purchased the rights to 84 Charing Cross Road for her
as a twenty-first wedding anniversary present. |
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The film version of Gore
Vidal's "Myra Breckinridge" was supposed to mark the
reunion of Anne with "Graduate" director Mike Nichols.
Raquel Welch got the part instead. |
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Anne enjoyed and
collected the work of deaf artist Robert Freiman. |
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Max Brooks says that his mother "was a closet scientist. She
loved the book 'The Microbe Hunters' and was fascinated by survival
issues, had an organic garden and canned food." |
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One set of Anne's
grandparents hailed from Calabria -- the boot tip of Italy, the part
that kicks you in the backside. |
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At the 2006 Oscars, the
music for "In Memoriam" (which included Anne) was a combination of the original
movie scores for Now Voyager and Johnny Belinda. |
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According to director
Ang Lee: "The Graduate was a big film for me. I realised
it had done something more than just be entertaining. It was
censored in Taiwan. It reached us about five years after it was
released in America, and they changed the dialogue between the
mother and daughter (Anne Bancroft, who played Mrs Robinson, and
actress Katharine Ross) so they became sisters. They said 'sisters'
on the screen.... and the censors stopped [the dubbing] in certain
scenes, and I couldn't tell what was being said from the actors'
mouthing." source |
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Screenwriter Evan Hunter
had Anne Bancroft in mind to play the doomed schoolteacher Annie
Hayworth in The Birds. Suzanne Pleshette got the part. source |
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Here are 2 Jeopardy
questions to which Anne was the answer:
Category: BROADWAY Category: OSCAR WOMEN |
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Anne was originally set
to portray Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest, but she exited
the project once she read the screenplay. Faye Dunaway was cast
instead. |
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Anne was only 6 years
older than Dustin Hoffman when she played his girlfriend's mother in
The Graduate. She was only about 8 years older than
"daughter" Katharine Ross. |
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Judy Garland was considered for the role of Mrs. Robinson in The
Graduate. |
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Anne's grandparents came
from DiNapoli-Muro Locano, a small town in the mountains in the
province of Potenza -- the Italianos are from Benovento. DiNapoli --
according to Gore Vidal, originally Sephardic Jews. The origin of
this name is a group of men who fought with Garibaldi to unite Italy
and were from Piedmont in the north, remained in the south after the
war and were called: "The Italianos". (source: Anne's
sister, Phyllis) |
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The brief Anna Karenina
piece in The Turning Point was choreographed by Anne
herself. source  |
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Anne wore a Harry Winston diamond engagement ring in The
Graduate. |
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According to Hal Erickson in the All Movie Guide: "Whenever Mel Brooks wanted to get a rise out of wife Anne Bancroft during their joint talk-show appearances of the 1970s, Brooks would bring up the subject of
Gorilla at Large. Easily the low point of Ms. Bancroft's movie career...." |
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Anne was offered the role of Chris MacNeil (the mother) in The Exorcist (1973), but had to turn it down because she was pregnant. |
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Anne was a leading choice to play Aurora Greenway (the mother) in Terms of Endearment (1983). |
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In The Graduate, to be true to the movie, Anne drank bourbon and once, a martini. |
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Mel Brooks so revered his spouse that he always referred to her by both of her names. |
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United Artists originally offered a $2 million budget if William Gibson and Arthur Penn would cast either Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn in the role of Annie Sullivan in
The Miracle Worker. When they insisted that the part be recreated by Tony Award Winner Anne Bancroft, the studio cut the budget by $1.5 million. source |
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Early in her career, Anne's coded casting card kept by Franklin Schaffner read "CDXX," meaning that Anne could play comedy or drama and was an excellent actress. source |
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In The Graduate, a body double was used for the extremely brief nude shots. |
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Anne Italiano had performed in early TV as Anne Marno -- a combination of MARie and ItaliaNO. When she went to Hollywood, Darryl F. Zanuck feared that an ethnic sounding name like Marno would condemn Anne to typecasting. He gave her a list of names from which to choose a new surname, and she chose
Bancroft "because it was the only one which sounded like I
didn't look like Lana Turner." |
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Because she had encouraged him to turn The Producers into a Broadway musical, Mel Brooks referred to his wife as "Obi-Wan Kenobi." |
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When she was nine years old, Anne scrawled, "I want to be an actress" on the back fence of her flat. |
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Anne's height: I've seen it listed at 5' 6½" and 5' 8",
but in an interview, she herself gave the writer the information that she is
5' 6"; and measurements: 38-23-35. A dress at eBay which is
purported to have belonged to Anne is size 7-8. |
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In most of her films, Anne habitually removes an earring before answering a telephone. |
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For her first Hollywood movie, Don't Bother to Knock, Anne was cast as a singer. However, it was felt that her voice was weak in the upper registers, so she had to lip-synch to the dulcet tones of Eve Marley. |
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While on trial for his life in Texas in 1995, Scott Panetti decided to defend himself. He dressed for court like a make-believe cowboy, with jeans stuffed into his boots and a cowboy hat dangling from a string around his neck. He tried to call John F. Kennedy, Jesus Christ and Anne Bancroft as witnesses for his defense. |
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Anne only watched The Graduate once. |
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Anne was raised Catholic by her parents,
and contrary to anything you may hear otherwise, she did not
convert to Judaism after marrying Mel Brooks. |
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Anne wasn't present to receive her Oscar for Best Actress on awards night in 1963. She was in New York performing in
Mother Courage and her award was accepted on her behalf by Joan Crawford.
Anne watched the ceremony on TV at her apartment after the show. |
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It was Richard Basehart who recommended Anne to Fred Coe for Two for the
Seesaw, the stage play which changed the direction of Anne's entire career. |
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Doris Day said in her published memoirs, co-authored by A.E. Hotchener, that she rejected the part of Mrs. Robinson in
The Graduate "on moral grounds." |
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In the winter of 1962, Ray Stark and David Merrick developed a
musical based on the life of Ziegfeld Follies star Fanny Brice
(Stark's mother-in-law). Composer Jule Styne was interested in
Barbra Streisand playing Fanny. At the time, Anne Bancroft was the
lead candidate to play Fanny. Styne asked songwriter Bob Merrill to
write lyrics. After hearing the songs -- written with Streisand in
mind -- Bancroft decided she wanted no part of the show. source |
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The leg on the poster
for The Graduate belongs to model Linda Grey, who later went
on to star in the TV show "Dallas." |
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The role of Nurse
Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was offered to,
and turned down by, Anne Bancroft, Angela Lansbury, Ellen Burstyn,
Colleen Dewhurst, and Geraldine Page. |
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Once asked to explain
the success of their marriage, Mel Brooks said that 1) he always made his
wife laugh, and 2) he was always scared of her. |
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Broadway's marquees
dimmed at 8pm on June 8, 2005 in tribute to Anne. |
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"Yes, Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft are both godparents of my
children and very, very close friends of mine." -- Alan Yentob,
who ran BBC2 from 1987 to 1992 |
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Anne, Mel and son Max
have each won Emmy awards. |
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As a young girl, Anne
had seriously considered a career as a lab technician; later as a
successful performer, she still enjoyed reading scholarly science
journals on the side, with a particular interest in genetics and
alternative medicine. |
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When the American Film
Institute polled Hollywood for its list of the top films of all
time, Anne chose #1 The Informer, #2 The African Queen,
and #3 Dumbo. |
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Jeanne Moreau was also
considered for the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. |
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Anne said that director
Arthur Penn had the greatest impact on her career. |
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According to Anne, 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." |
... more to come!
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away."
