Actress Anne Bancroft dies at 73

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2005

NEW YORK (AFP) — The American actress Anne Bancroft, best known for her role as the vampish Mrs Robinson in the 1967 movie "The Graduate," has died. She was 73.

John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, the comic actor, director and producer Mel Brooks, said Bancroft died Monday of uterine cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

Born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano in The Bronx, Bancroft began her film career just as the studio contract system was coming to an end.

She made her big screen debut in "Don't Bother to Knock" in 1952, and 10 years later she won a best actress Oscar for her role as Annie Sullivan, the teacher of the deaf, mute and blind Helen Keller in "The Story of My Life."

But her signature role remains that of Mrs. Robinson in "The...