Anne Bancroft - Marriage and Family

Marriage and Family

Bancroft was married to Martin May from July 1, 1953, to February 13, 1957. They had no children.

In 1961, Bancroft met Mel Brooks at a rehearsal for the Perry Como variety show. Bancroft and Brooks married on August 5, 1964, at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau near New York City Hall and were together until her death. In 1972 Bancroft gave birth to her only child, Maximillian Brooks.

They were seen three times on the screen together: once dancing a tango in Brooks's Silent Movie (1976); in his remake of To Be or Not to Be (1983); and in the episode entitled "Opening Night" (2004) of the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm. They were also in Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), but never appeared together. Brooks produced the film The Elephant Man (1980), in which Bancroft acted. He also was executive-producer for the film 84 Charing Cross Road (1987) in which she starred. Both Brooks and Bancroft appeared in season six of The Simpsons. According to the DVD commentary, when Bancroft came to record her lines for the episode "Fear of Flying", the Simpsons writers asked if Brooks had come with her (which he had); she joked, "I can't get rid of him!" In 2010, Brooks credited Bancroft as being the guiding force behind his involvement in developing The Producers and Young Frankenstein for the musical theatre, citing an early meeting as "From that day, until her death on June 5, 2005, we were glued together."

In April 2005, two months before her death, Bancroft became a grandmother when her daughter-in-law Michelle gave birth to a boy, Henry Michael Brooks.