My Last Meeting with Anne Bancroft: A True Story

In 1993, I moved to Los Angeles from New York City and quickly realized I was quite poor. Having few immediate money making skills but not afraid to buy a pair of black pants, I went looking for a job as a waiter. Since I had done this kind of work before in Manhattan, I figured landing a job in Santa Monica would be easy.

This turned out to be true. Remi, which also had a restaurant in New York, had recently opened on the Third Street Promenade. I went in, applied, and landed a few lunch shifts that averaged about forty dollars per shift. Nasty. But it was better than complete unemployment.

I waited on Pierce Brosnan, who was Agent 007 in the James Bond movies of the era. He smoked cigars and decided to start a Chess game five minutes before my shift was over and the management made us stand around and wait on him for another hour while he played. I wanted to run him over with a snow mobile.

A few days later, in came Anne Bancroft. With her parents. They were pretty ancient, these two old New Yorkers. It’s really sad that her mother outlived her. I can’t imagine how. The old lady looked like she was 100 twelve years ago.

Anyway, Anne Bancroft was my customer. And you know what? She was so fucking nice. From the way she talked to her parents, you could tell that she spent a lot of time with them. She was super warm and called her mother Ma. I remember she kept yelling in a loving tone at her father to finish his meal. Also, she had this genuine smile and talked to me like I was her old pal from frigging Flatbush. She was grand and grounded.

But there’s something even more fun about all this. The special that day was a fresh pea soup with mint. Or something like that. I remember it was green and very tasty. Anyway, Anne Bancroft loved the soup. She asked me my name and I replied with the truth. Then, she asked me to ask the kitchen what was in it. I found out and told her. Then, she said, “I’m having sixteen people over to my house tomorrow for lunch. This is just delicious, Don. Can I get sixteen soups to go?” And she smiled at me, knowing it was a ridiculous request, yet, she really loved the soup and wanted sixteen of them. And I said, “I’ll ask the chef.”

So, I asked the chef and of course the chef said, “Of course.” And he ladled out sixteen to-go bowls of soup and we put them in a box with cardboard between the layers of bowls and I brought the box of soup to her table and I said, “Here it is!”

She was truly appreciative and very excited. “Don, this is just great. It’s really so delicious, Don.” She couldn’t wait to serve the soup the next day because she knew her company was going to love it. Then, she and her ancient parents got up from the table and Anne Bancroft asked me, “Would you mind walking me to my car?” And I thought, hell, Mrs. Robinson wants me to walk her to her car. So, of course, I carried the box of soup and she escorted her aged parents by the elbows and when we got to the car, which was just parked at a meter, she opened the trunk. There we were standing on the street in Santa Monica, Anne Bancroft dangling her car keys from her hand, her old parents shuffling around and me in my black pants, white shirt, tie and apron. I put the soup in the trunk and closed it and she smiled at me with her warm, lovely smile and put some money in my hand, like fifteen or twenty bucks, and said, “Thank you so much, Don.” And from the way she said it, I just felt really warm and happy and I thought to myself—I hope her company really likes the soup, she really wants them to like it as much as she did.

Then, I sort of lingered there on the sidewalk for another five seconds so she could, I don't know, invite me to her house or maybe be my new best friend. But we both knew our friendly transaction was over. So I went back to the restaurant to fold napkins and she went back home to Mel Brooks.



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