LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Anne Bancroft: American Academy
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Anne Bancroft went back to television with a good performance as Mary Magdalene in Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth (1976) and to the theatre as Golda Meir in Golda (1977). She returned to Hollywood toward the end of the decade and had more success in films such as The Turning Point (1977), in which she won an Academy nomination for her performance as an ageing ballerina.
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Although her work in "Two for the Seesaw" had been critically acclaimed, there were those who weren't yet convinced that Bancroft was doing much more than playing herself. Her portrayal of the half-blind, Irish-American Annie Sullivan immediately dispelled any of those doubts. Upon seeing the play, author Edwin O'Connor said, "This is the most astonishingly accurate Irish accent I've ever heard. It sounds as if she'd been born in Galway."
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Acting is all about choices and Bancroft made some unique ones during her five decades in show business. Always willing to play against type, she embodied a variety of characters, including Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel in the play "Golda," a gypsy in the film ''Love Potion No. 9," a crippled violinist in the play "Duet for One," a suicidal housewife in the movie "A Slender Thread," a centenarian in the TV movie ''Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All," the mother of a mixed-race child in the TV movie "Deep in My Heart" (for which she won an Emmy), Mary Magdalene in Franco Zeffirelli's miniseries "Jesus of Nazareth," spunky American writer Helene Hanff in the film version of "84 Charing Cross Road," a feminist U.S. senator in the movie "G.I. Jane" and a rich eccentric in the film "Great Expectations."
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In mid-career Bancroft attended the Actors Studio to heighten her understanding of the acting craft. Later she studied at the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women at UCLA. In 1980 she directed a feature, "Fatso," starring Dom De Luise. It received modest attention.
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