“Beauty is only skin deep,” said Anne Bancroft, “and beneath my skin, I’m a slob. I burp and I slurp in public. I kick off my shoes and scratch myself at dignified banquets.
“I can whistle like a man and sometimes I whistle AT men! I know it’s not ladylike but then, I’m no lady. I tried it once and it was a lousy bore. Some time ago I figured out that I couldn’t be a lady and a woman at the same time.”
“You either sip your coffee or you slurp it, if you know what I mean. I’m a slurper. Boy, do I slurp!”
Anne wore no makeup, her jersey suit was rumpled and her hair tousled as we talked in her London hotel suite. If she wanted to create an impression, it wasn’t supposed to be a good one.
“I used to be a drunk and a liar,” she said, almost as though she were purposely trying to startle me. In my early days in Hollywood I drank and drank and drank. I was a bottle bore. My pictures were rotten, but you should have seen the performances I gave on the party circuit!”
…
“I dress like a scarecrow and eat like a stevedore. I eat hot dogs in bed and haven’t got the manners of an ape.”
An ape? “That reminds me - in one of my early movies, I played the part of a murderess who disguises herself as a gorilla. So go ahead and call me Queen Kong. I’d rather be called that than Miss Cutie Pie. Besides, from what I’ve read of gorillas, I’d rather be like them than like people.”
-excerpted from Bancroft’s 1964 interview with the National Enquirer.
While the interviewer helpfully notes that Bancroft has holes in her stockings, I’m happy to report that the article was not accompanied by photographs of Bancroft in a bathing suit, with red circles drawn around her cellulite. In another small mercy, the Brangelinaniston Industrial Complex won’t take possession of the tabloids for another 40 years.
The rest of the interview can be read here.
