Home » Here’s to you, Anna Maria Louisa Italiano Brooks (aka Anne Bancroft)

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Here’s to you, Anna Maria Louisa Italiano Brooks (aka Anne Bancroft) — 14 Comments

  1. “kcom–perhaps everything is about ecomonics :-).”

    Perhaps, up to a point. But don’t go turning into Karl Marx on me. 🙂

    The older I get the more I suspect pretty much everything is, neo. Well, perhaps not love.

    kcom — the thing about Marx is that he was SUCH a lousy economist, really. My highschool kid sees through it, as I did at his age — though at least he’s not being forced to study it in three courses (history, economics and social studies) as I was every year of highschool. 😉

    Portia

  2. Somehow I missed the news that she had died…but now I understand why someone sent me an e-mail in tribute to her the other day. She was a class act…

  3. Here’s another tribute to Anne Bancroft. Reading yours, I realize I probably have Mrs. Robinson wrong. I’m going by memory, haven’t seen the movie as enough of a grown-up to be aware of the tragedy. I’ll see it again, now, to see the sadness in the character.

  4. “kcom–perhaps everything is about ecomonics :-).”

    Perhaps, up to a point. But don’t go turning into Karl Marx on me. 🙂

  5. “In 1964 she married Mr. Brooks, who survives her, as does their son, Maximilian. Also surviving are her mother and two sisters, Joanne and Phyllis.”

    Are Italians different than Dutch?

    “Suddenly, the woman realized who I was. And she said in Italian to the young men, ‘Questa senora e Senora Robinson.’ And I heard ‘Robinson’ and the four young men were so bowled over, they got up out of their seats, they took off my shoes, they kissed my feet, they threw me in the air, they danced with me, they wanted their picture taken (with me),” she recalls, laughing. “It was the most glorious celebration I have ever had in my life. So in times like that, on a hot summer day in Avellino, Italy, when these four darling, darling young men just celebrate you like that, it’s quite wonderful.”

  6. “The Turning Point was a great movie showing the opportunity costs of either decision — stay in showbiz, no family; have family, give up the 10 curtain calls for a prima donna performance.” – Tom Grey

    Hey Neo,

    I remember your confusion about economics from an earlier post (when you confused accounting with economics). I bet you had no idea when you were appearing (such as it was) in “The Turning Point” that you were in a movie about economics. I’ve come to realize more clearly lately that economics is about decision-making and priorities and things like that as much as it is about money supplies and inflation rates.

  7. What a nice tribute.

    I was not so fortunate as to see Miracle Worker on stage but after seeing the movie, I remember marveling at the ability of the two actresses (and one of them a mere child) to achieve that level of emotional and physcial energy six nights a weeks and Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Amazing.

    Next time I watch Turning Point, I’ll look for you (I know the scene). You’ll be the dancer with the green apple in front of her face?

    (Cary Grant is my favorite actor, too. There is, was and never will be one like him. You have good taste.)

  8. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bancroft was a very witty person in private. She was from the Bronx, after all.

    I haven’t seen THE TURNING POINT — it seemed too corny when it first came out — but I’ll certainly want to see it now for her performance.

    Thanks for the glimpse of ballet and movie life, NNC, and thanks for the nice words about my Bancroft piece.

  9. I have been a big Mel Brooks fan since I was a kid. Thing is, I am also a very serious person (Philosophy Degree, Lit Degree, sit around reading Nietzsche and Harold Brodkey, Lord knows why?).

    I also have noted the odd mixture of characters in the Brooks/Bancroft marriage. But, the thing is, their marriage lasted, which is rare in Hollywood.

    Mel Brooks took on Hitler as a comedic target 30 years before Benigni did. That must have taken guts. And it must have taken an unimaginable chasm of pain to want to have confronted the subject in such a way.

    They say life is a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel. If that’s the case than why are our serious theatre people, bufoons, while it is our comedians who tend towards the tragic?

    I always took the fact that the Bancroft/Brooks marriage lasted all those years to be a testament to the depth of both their characters. There is certainly a mystery in their relationship. I doubt the mystery would be solved with a punchline.

    Pastorius

  10. An interesting footnote to The Graduate is Bancroft is not even 6 years older than Dustin Hoffman.

  11. A “silent bit” player once upon a time and now you are a “voice” heard across the world!

  12. The Turning Point was a great movie showing the opportunity costs of either decision — stay in showbiz, no family; have family, give up the 10 curtain calls for a prima donna performance.

    Too bad there’s nothing remotely similar for the big US mistakes:
    a) leaving Vietnam so that the Killing Field commies take over,
    b) doing nothing in Rwanda.

    [Bush HAS called Sudan genocide — more than Amnesty or Human Rights Watch has done.]

    The reality of opportunity cost is an economic concept almost always lost on the Left.

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