Anne Bancroft was born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano on September 17, 1931 in The Bronx, New York to Michael (a patternmaker) and Mildred (telephone operator) Italiano. She has two sisters Joanne (older) and Phyllis (younger).

Mrs. Bancroft has an early love of performing and began to take acting and dancing lessons at the age of four. After High School, she planned on becoming a lab technician, but her mother convinced her to attend the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts instead.

Her professional career in acting came in 1951 at the age of twenty, when she began to appear in episodes of television drama series such as Suspense, Danger, The Adventures of Ellery Quinn and Lights Out. It was not until the following year that she went to Hollywood and made it to ..[Full version]