The Hindu : Front Page : Anne Bancroft dies of cancer

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 09, 2005

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Anne Bancroft dies of cancer

NEW YORK: Anne Bancroft, who won the 1962 best actress Oscar as the teacher of a young Helen Keller in ``The Miracle Worker'' but achieved greater fame as the seductive Mrs. Robinson in ``The Graduate,'' has died. She was 73. She died of cancer on Monday at Mount Sinai Hospital, John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, Mel Brooks, said. Ms. Bancroft was awarded the Tony for creating the role on Broadway of poor-sighted Annie Sullivan, the teacher of Keller, who was born deaf and blind. She repeated her portrayal in the film version. Yet despite her Academy Award and four other nominations, ``The Graduate'' overshadowed her other achievements. Her beginnings in Hollywood were unimpressive. She was signed by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1952 and given the glamour treatment. She had been acting in television as Anne Marno (her real name: Anna Maria Louise Italiano), but it sounded too ethnic for movies. The studio gave her a choice of names; she picked Bancroft ``because it sounded dignified.'' — AP

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