Trivia of Anne Bancroft

 Trivia of Anne Bancroft (17 September 1931 - 6 June 2005)

*At the age of 9, she wrote "I want to be an actress" on the fence at her apartment.

*Her real name was Anna Maria Louisa Italiano and felt too ethnic.She then began her career doing small roles on TV, under the name Anne Marno before change to Anne Bancroft.

*Associated with the method acting technique, having studied under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, Bancroft made her film debut as supporting role in the noir thriller Don't Bother to Knock (1952) starred Richard Widmark and Marilyn Monroe.

*While filming a scene with Stewart Granger in film The Past Hunt (1956), Anne Bancroft who supposed to be play as Indian girl , was injured after falling from her horse and replaced by Debra Paget.In the last sequence, which was apparently not re-filmed, Bancroft can still be easily recognized leaving the cave and starting to descend the mountain.

*She made her Broadway debut as lovelorn, Bronx-accented Gittel Mosca opposite Henry Fonda (as the married man Gittel loves) in William Gibson's two-character play Two for the Seesaw (1958).For this role, she won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play.

*In 1961, Bancroft met comedian Mel Brooks at a rehearsal for Perry Como's variety show Kraft Music Hall. Bancroft and Brooks married on August 5, 1964, at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau near New York City Hall, and remained married until her death in 2005. Their son, Max Brooks, was born in 1972.She, Mel Brooks and their son Max Brooks all are Emmy-winners.

*Before filming The Miracle Worker (1962), United Artists originally offered a $2 million budget if writer William Gibson and director Arthur Penn would cast either Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn in the role of Annie Sullivan, the young woman who teaches the child Helen Keller to communicate. When they insisted that the part be recreated by Tony Award winner Anne Bancroft, UA cut the budget by $1.5 million. Her perform as Annie Sullivan made Bancroft won for the first time in the 1962 Academy Award - Best Actress.Bancroft wasn't present to receive her award. At the time, she was in New York doing a play and the award was accepted by Joan Crawford.

*Said that for many years after doing The Graduate (1967), young men would tell her that she was the first woman they had sexual fantasies about.