Hi, MoPoFolk, from Joe Bonelli.
One-- I finally got moved again and am still in disarray but it's done. Thank
heaven!
Two-- Thanks so much to Channing T. for "wishing" I were here to discuss the
great Bancroft.
I really wish I had a great deal to say.
I always liked Anne Bancroft and was aware of her as a kid in some of the early
films she was in. I vaguely remember a western in color with, I think, Steve
Cochran, in which Bancroft co-starred as a Latino or American-Indian woman.
Of course I was fascinated with her when she starred on Broadway in "The
Miracle Worker"-- a story with which I was familiar. My grandmother was born
on the same day as Helen Keller in 1880 and was always interested in her so I
knew of Keller from an early age. She was still alive at the time of the
play's presentation on Broadway. That's a production I'd have killed to see.
"Miracle Worker" had originally been a television play on "Playhouse 90"- or
another of those miraculous "live" television drama anthologies of the 50s!
(Be jealous, younger folk! We got the best television in history in the US in
the 1950s-- and ALL in living Black & White!) The tv leads were Teresa Wright
(as teacher Annie Sullivan) and same-age-as-me Patty McCormack (most famous in
B'way's and H'wood's "The Bad Seed").
I loved Bancroft in films-- particularly 'Miracle Worker,'' The Graduate'
(which I heretically think falls apart after Bancroft's line, "Goodbye,
Benjamin."), 'The Turning Point' and the remake of "To Be or Not To Be." I
didn't see many of her later film performances like "Charing Cross Road," but
the lists showing up are reminding me that I need to do so.
I appreciate the fact that Anne Bancroft , along with Matthew Broderick, was
instrumental in getting Harvey FiersteIn's brilliant autobiographical play,
"Torch Song Trilogy," to the screen.
Studios weren't really interested at the time (late 80s ?) in a three-one-act
slash of current gay life film-- no matter the acclaim the original had
attained on Broadway.
The third and final act concerns the hero (played by Fierstein) and a
long-time-coming confrontation with his oh-so-Jewish mother. On Broadway the
mother was played by the wonderful Estelle Getty ("The Golden Girls").
Bancroft saw the play and came backstage to tell Fierstein that it should be
filmed and that she should play the Mother in order to secure financing.
Matthew Broderick had been in the original Broadway cast playing the gay
adopted son in Act III. By then Matthew had become a bankable star and he too
wanted to see to it that Torch Song was filmed. So Broderick assumed the
Second-Act role of the handsome young man who falls in love with Fierstein
(much to his utter shock!) and becomes his lover but who is brutally murdered
in one of those incidents that the Right Wing refuse to recognize as Hate
Crimes!
And so-- thanks to Anne Bancroft and Matthew Broderick, an important part of
theatre history made it to the screen--- and just as brilliantly, so I'm told,
as in the Broadway original.
One of my favorite Bancroft roles: that of "Jennie Jerome," the American
mother of Churchill, in Attenborough's "Young Winston."
Now WHEN is THAT one going to get the dvd treatment it deserves???!!!
Would love to add more but am not as conversant on Bancroft's career as I'd
like to be. Suffice it to say that she died much too young, leaving us a body
of fine on-film work.
I just wish I had seen her on the stage.
Joe
PS-- Here's a "Miracle Worker" story from Broadway that really more concerns
Patty Duke than Bancroft. If you remember the film, Patty was a bit "old" to
be playing Helen but thank heavens her star-making, Oscar-winning performance
was captured on film. It was said that on Broadway that her concentration was
uncanny.
One night an "incident" occurred during one of the joint Duke/Bancroft
confrontational "teaching" scenes. A cable of some sort snapped high up in
the "flies"-- that space above the stage where sets, lights and all are hung
and "dropped" in and out as needed. The cable snap sounded like a loud
backfire or shot. The audience jumped in their seats. Bancroft jumped in her
skin. But Patty Duke (or "Helen") didn't flinch. She stayed totally in
character.
I'd love to ask Duke about that moment some day. Sad that I will never get the
chance to ask Bancroft about it-- or indeed about any and all of her
extraordinary stage and film career.
Joe
>
> From: channinglylethomson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: 2005/06/08 Wed AM 01:04:08 EDT
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [MOPO] Another Anne Bancroft Thought
>
> She was also very, very good in THE TURNING POINT. Her performance as
> an older woman who has basically sacrificed it all for dance and the
> applause is really remarkable. AND, she is one of the few actresses
> who could really maintain equal footing with a powerhouse performer
> like Shirley MacLaine. There climactic fight scene outside Lincoln
> Center was a really terrific moment in film. I wish Joe Bonelli was
> around to comment on Bancroft's career.
>
> Channing Thomson in San Francisco
> was instrumental
> Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
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