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Re Anne Bancroft (“Escaping Mrs. Robinson,” by John Clark, Aug. 10): Does no one remember that David Letterman’s ill-fated “Uma/Oprah” routine was actually based on a sketch from a TV special Bancroft made years ago?
In it, she has a nightmare where she goes to a party and has to introduce Mia to Ava and then Ava to Uta and then Mia and Ava and Uta to Ulu and so on, spinning out the routine until it encompassed a list of 27 similarly named personalities.
In her hands, the sketch was hilarious and showed a master at work. I would dearly love to see a tape of the show if it exists.
MASHEY BERNSTEIN
Santa Barbara
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Perhaps you are thinking of 1970’s Emmy-winning special “Annie, the Women in the Life of a Man,” which also won Emmys for writers Gary Belkin, Peter Bellwood, Herb Sargent, Thomas Meehan and Judith Viorst. The UCLA Film and Television Archive has a conservation copy kinescope.
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