Anne Bancroft by Patty Duke (Entertainment Weekly)
Hyfler/Rosner
SHE WAS THE ULTIMATE DRAMATIC ACTRESS. And she had that
wicked sense of humor: It wasn't a surprise to me that she
and Mel Brooks married-of course she would marry that crazy
man! The first time I met her, I was auditioning to play
Helen Keller in the Broadway production of The Miracle
Worker. I was 12 years old and she was 29. Part of the
audition was to talk with Arthur Penn, the director, and the
rest of it was to fight with Anne Bancroft. And so she came
out of the audience up onto the stage, and Arthur would say,
Now Helen does this, and teacher does that, and Helen does
this, and then teacher smacks her-and Annie smacked me! But
I didn't recoil; I was ready to hit her back. There were two
more auditions and fights. Then finally Arthur and Anne
agreed that she and I could go toe-to-toe.
Anne taught me-by example, not by lecture-the ethics and
discipline of the theater. She was also one of the sexiest
creatures that ever lived. Without being too obvious, I
stole as much as I could from her behavior. (Bancroft died
of uterine cancer in New York City.)