Dear Channing, et. al.
I went to IBDB (Internet Broadway DataBase) and checked to see if I could find
out who replaced Anne Bancroft in Miracle Worker on Broadway.
It was Suzanne Pleshette.
Joe
>
> From: channinglylethomson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: 2005/06/09 Thu PM 04:05:25 EDT
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [MOPO] Another Anne Bancroft Thought
>
> Joe -- do you know who took over for Anne Bancroft when she left the
> Miracle Worker. Patty Duke often says she had to work with another
> actress for awhile and doesn't seem too pleased about the replacement.
> Take care, Channing
>
> On Jun 9, 2005, at 12:47 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > 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
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>
>
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