For several generations of film fans and moviegoers, mere mention of "The Graduate" immediately conjures up memories of Simon & Garfunkel's tuneful phrases: "And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know...."
The movie title also evokes images of Hoffman, as the son of her husband's law partner, saying with slow realization, "Mrs. Robinson -- you're trying to seduce me ... aren't you?"
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday June 09, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 46 words Type of Material: Correction
Bancroft obituary -- The obituary of actress Anne Bancroft in Wednesday's Section A said she earned an Emmy in 1970 for the special "Annie -- The Woman in the Life of Men." In fact, the title was "Annie, The Women in the Life of a Man."
In a 1969 essay, film critic Pauline Kael described "The Graduate" as a movie that, while "aesthetically trivial," penetrated the national culture because it so deftly reflected it. With its focus on middle-class alienation, it appealed to moviegoers because it gave them the sense that they knew what was going on. "They don't see the movie as a movie," she wrote, "but as part of the soap opera of their lives."
Although she was playing a woman old enough to be his mother, Bancroft was 35 and Hoffman was 30 when they filmed the movie.
But Hoffman said Tuesday that he looked up to her nonetheless because of her far greater acting experience.
"I was so grateful to work with someone so seasoned," he told The Times. "She had done 'The Miracle Worker.' She knew the boards. She was naturally theatrical. She just went right through you, pierced you.
"She had that elegance, but she was also street," Hoffman added. "A stoop kid, a neighbor who would lean out the window and yell down to you."
Recognized forever after as Mrs. Robinson -- the fantasy older woman willing to teach nervous young men about sex -- Bancroft resented the film's domination over other career accomplishments that she considered more important.
"I'm still trying to get away from it," she told The Times in 1997.
The entertainment community sympathized with the actress' pique, but nevertheless loved the character as much as the public.
"Sometimes, there's something about a role that is so unforgettable, that it's just very hard to get away from it," Charles Champlin, former arts editor and film critic of The Times, said Tuesday.
"It's hard to think of that actor or actress in any other performance. In that respect, she will be Mrs. Robinson...."
But Bancroft's feeling about the indelible identity never stopped her from sharing her razor-sharp insight into Mrs. Robinson any more than it kept her from taking on widely diverse and difficult roles in other projects.
