Los Angeles, CA – Celebrate the extraordinary film career of actress/writer/director Anne Bancroft in the first-ever collection of her most iconic performances, The Anne Bancroft Collection, on Blu-ray™ December 10th from Shout! Factory. From Annie Sullivan to Mrs. Robinson, and from Helene Hanff to Anna Bronski, this Oscar®-winning* and profoundly versatile actress delivered some of the most poignant and sharply comic characters in modern film.
The collection, curated by Bancroft’s husband, the inimitable writer/director/producer Mel Brooks, includes the films Don’t Bother To Knock (1952), The Miracle Worker (1962),
The Pumpkin Eater (1964), The Graduate (1967), Fatso (1980),
To Be Or Not To Be (1983), and for the first time on Blu-ray™, Agnes Of God (1985), and 84 Charing Cross Road (1987). Beautifully packaged with a wealth of bonus features, The Anne Bancroft Collection also includes a new 20-page booklet with an essay by film writer Alicia Malone, that delves into Bancroft’s childhood, early career, and her most profound work.
Born in the Bronx as Anna Maria Louisa Italiano on September 17, 1931, she had an early flair for entertaining a crowd. Taking the stage name Anne Bancroft, she made her silver screen debut in 1952 alongside Richard Widmark and Marilyn Monroe in Don’t Bother To Knock, earning praise for her turn as a lounge singer.
In 1962, after playing Helen Keller’s beloved teacher Annie Sullivan on stage, Bancroft reprised her role on film, winning the Oscar® for Best Lead Actress.* This was Bancroft’s first Oscar® nomination out of five, and would be her only win, although she would also garner three BAFTAs, two Tony Awards and two Emmys during her career.
It was around this time when Anne Bancroft met her future husband Mel Brooks, whom she would marry in 1964. In 1967, at the age of 35, she appeared on the big screen as the sultry Mrs. Robinson, across from Dustin Hoffman. The Graduate was her first bona fide box office hit, and the now-iconic role won Anne Bancroft a third Academy Award® nomination.* She then appeared in the Jack Clayton-directed The Pumpkin Eater, in which she played a depressed housewife and earned the film’s only Academy Award® nomination*.
In 1980, when female directors were very scarce, just 16 in the years between 1967 and 1980, Bancroft wrote and directed her first feature film, Fatso. A heartwarming comedy about a man caught between his health and his appetite, starring Dom DeLuise, Fatso was produced by Brooksfilms, the production company owned by Mel Brooks, who had been looking to produce movies that were a breed apart from his signature comedies.
After taking some time off to raise her young son, Max Brooks, Bancroft decided to tackle a wide range of genres and characters. There was the hilarious WWII themed To Be Or Not To Be with Mel Brooks, Agnes Of God in which she played a Mother Superior across from Jane Fonda and Meg Tilly, and 84 Charing Cross Road, in which Bancroft played Helene Hanff, a New York writer who becomes pen pals with a London bookseller.
An overdue tribute to a trailblazing artist, The Anne Bancroft Collection houses all of these films, paying homage to one of the greatest talents of her generation.
The Anne Bancroft Collection Bonus Features
Don’t Bother to Knock
- Isolated Music Score (DTS-HD Mono)
- Theatrical Trailer
The Pumpkin Eater
- “Jeremy Mortimer on Penelope Mortimer”
- “Dinah and Fergus”
The Graduate
- Audio Commentary From 2007 Featuring Director Mike Nichols In Conversation With Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh
- Audio Commentary From 1987 Featuring Film Scholar Howard Suber
- Interview From 2015 With Actor Dustin Hoffman
- Conversation From 2015 Between Producer Lawrence Turman And Screenwriter Buck Henry
- Interview With Film Writer And Historian Bobbie O’Steen About Editor Sam O’Steen’s Work On The Graduate
- Students Of The Graduate, A Short Documentary From 2007 On The Film’s Influence
- The Graduate At 25, A 1992 Featurette On The Making Of The Film Featuring Interviews With Actors Dustin Hoffman And Katharine Ross, Producer Lawrence Turman, And Screenwriter Buck Henry
- Interview With Mike Nichols By Barbara Walters, From A 1966 Episode Of NBC’s Today Show
- Excerpt From A 1970 Appearance By Singer-Songwriter Paul Simon On The Dick Cavett Show
- Screen Tests: Tony Bill And Jennifer Leak, Robert Lipton And Cathy Carpenter, Dustin Hoffman And Katharine Ross
- Trailer
Fatso
- Looking Back On Fatso With Producers Stuart Cornfeld And Mel Brooks
- Interview With Film Historian Maya Montañez Smukler
- Image Gallery
- Press Kit
To Be Or Not To Be
- “Brooks and Bancroft: A Perfect Pair”
- “How Serious Can Mel Brooks Really Get?”
- Profiles
- To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Trivia!
- Mel Brooks Trailers
- Trailers
- Isolated Score Track (DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1)
