September 17

Anne Bancroft is born in The Bronx, 1931. Though she gave acclaimed performances in such noteworthy films as The Pumpkin Eater (1964), The Turning Point (1977) and Agnes of God (1985)—and won a Best Actress Oscar for The Miracle Worker (1962)—the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967) is perhaps the part Bancroft is most strongly identified with. As the older woman to Dustin Hoffman, she was, in reality, 35 years old—just five years older than Hoffman and a mere eight years older than Katharine Ross, who played her daughter. “Film critics said I gave a voice to the fear we all have,” Bancroft once said of her portrayal, “that we'll reach a point in our lives, look around and realize that all the things we said we'd do and become will never come to be—and that we're ordinary.” Paul Simon sang “Mrs. Robinson” at her memorial in June 2005 following her death from uterine cancer.