She'll Cry Anyway
Anne Bancroft Concedes Oscar to Julie Andrews
by Dick Kleiner
HOLLYWOOD (NEA) -- Standing proudly on top of her mother's television set is an Oscar. Will it be part of a pair after Monday? Anne Bancroft doesn't think so. And it doesn't particularly bother her.
"I expect to lose," she said. "The other time, I tried to convince myself that I was going to lose, but secretly I expected to win."
And in 1962, she did win for "The Miracle Worker." But this is another year and another picture. Her work in "The Pumpkin Eater" won her a second nomination for best actress, but she feels this simply not her year.
This will be the first time she will attend the big Academy Award night as a nominee. In 1962, when she won, she was playing on Broadway in "Mother Courage." But now she's here, working in "Seven Women." in which she took over Patricia Neal's part when Miss Neal suffered a stroke.
"So I'll have to go to the ceremony," Anne says. "I'll be there to applaud when Julie Andrews wins. I'll try to be very brave but I know that when it happened, I'll cry. I always cry."
MISS BANCROFT feels that winning an Oscar is not the most important thing in her life. In fact, in pales into insignificance beside other things -- love, for example, and health, and the chance to work.
"A little while ago," she says, "my mother-in-law was operated on. It wasn't a serious operation, thank God, but she isn't a young woman. Mel (her husband, Mel Brooks) called her yesterday, and she sounded wonderful and chipper on the phone
"And Mel said to me, 'You know, it's good to have something like this happen once in a while -- then you realize what's really important, and what isn't.'"
She's only been Mrs. Brooks a few months. And she is still in that radiant - glow state. Next to that feeling, the winning or losing of an Oscar is a trifle.
IT'S AN EXCITING event, of course. The possibility of winning, remote as she feels it is, is a big thrill. She says she imagines that it would be a thrill, no matter how many times it happens.
But the thrill is contained; it is in that she thinks is its proper perspective. And perhaps the circumstances which brought her to Hollywood now are responsible for this rather restrained philosophy.
Patricia Neal is a good friend. Anne says the double shock of learning that Pat had a stroke and realizing that a woman of only 39 could have a stroke were sobering blows.
"When I was little," Anne says, "I would light a candle when I wanted something very badly.
"I'm not going to light a candle for an Oscar. But I'll light one for Pat Neal."
Anne Bancroft Oscar knows it's place -- on top of her mother's television set, not uppermost in her mind.
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