She was more famous for playing one role than many actresses are for a lifetime of leading parts. It is no more possible to look back on late-1960s American cinema without seeing Anne Bancroft, svelte, glamorous, predatory and iconic in The Graduate, than to survey the early 1960s without mentally picturing Janet Leigh, blonde and at bay, in Psycho.

Bancroft played more challenging roles than The Graduate, winning an Oscar for The Miracle Worker in 1962 and, later, a Bafta Best Actress award for 81 Charing Cross Road. But the feline panache and sombre, droll, deadpan elegance of her Mrs Robinson made it a performance that later stage actresses would anxiously and in most cases vainly measure themselves by.

Born in the Bronx and trained at the Actors Studio, Bancroft was for years a studio starlet willing to endure anything Hollywood threw at her: from 3D horror in Gorilla at Large to peplum hokum in Demetrius and the Gladiators. She was groomed to be a sex symbol but increasingly favoured the tomboyish side of screen femininity.

The 1960s brought out her unique blend of grave and feisty, sophisticated and sharp-clawed. She left a star mark even when underacting, as in The Pumpkin Eater, and was a brooding, powerful presence in John Ford's last film, Seven Women.

Her marriage to Mel Brooks brought a decrease in star roles but many star cameos, often marked with her own immaculacy even when scripted with the Brooks brand of broad comedy.