Fascinating women make the world go round.

One truly fascinating woman, actress Anne Bancroft, will portray another, sculptor Louise Nevelson, in an Edward Albee play, “The Occupant” which opens on Broadway Feb. 24.

Bancroft won Tony Awards for “The Miracle Worker” and “Two for the Seesaw.” But most men remember her sexually explosive performance as the Older Woman in “The Graduate” when she seduces a more-than-willing Younger Man, Dustin Hoffman.

Nevelson came to Rockland from Russia around the turn of the century, married the first man who offered and fled to New York City at the first possible moment. There, over decades and decades, she adhered to her own strict view of art and eventually triumphed to become one of the foremost female artists of the century. Her sculptures composed of toilet seats and wagon wheels, anything she could find in the junkyards, eventually were featured in some of the most discerning collections and museums around the world.

When I came to Rockland in the early 1970s, I, of course, had never heard of the woman. You couldn’t go into the old Thorndike Hotel too often without meeting the world-class-charming owner, Nate Berliawsky. And you couldn’t talk to Nate for long before hearing him brag about his “artist” sister, Louise Nevelson. I never believed him until I went into the Farnsworth Art Museum to look her up. It was just before she exploded on the art scene, but the art reference books praised her work and artistic insight.

Always on the lookout for a road trip (and mileage checks), I proposed to the Bangor Daily News editors that I go to New York City and interview Nevelson. To my amazement, they agreed.

In an interview in her SoHo apartment, Nevelson was simultaneously imperious and as charming as her Rockland brother. She willingly discussed her Rockland roots and long-remembered anti-Semitic slights dating back to high school. “I cannot be bothered with Rockland. If I never set foot in Rockland again, it will be fine by me. It is not even a dot on the map,” she said.

It made for a great story.

The administration of the Farnsworth museum was furious, since they had been cooking up a welcome-home retrospective to honor the artist. They claimed that the interview was concocted by a small-town reporter looking for a scoop.

The very idea.

Eventually the museum (and Nate) convinced Nevelson to come “home” to Rockland for a show. I was not invited to the opening, of course. I chose to spend this evening, like many others, at Rockland’s waterfront mecca, the Black Pearl. In a small town, you get away with nothing. Needless to say, I was berated by other diners for not attending the opening of my alleged “friend.” Some charged that I never even went to New York, but made up the entire interview.

As God as my witness, the following is gospel.

Nevelson and her entourage strolled into the Pearl. No one could make an entrance like the regal Nevelson. Now the abuse really started. “Hey, Emmet, your friend is here,” they taunted.

I walked up to her table and several sycophants leaped to protect Nevelson from this party-crasher. Nevelson looked up from her mink eyelashes (really) and waved an invitation to sit down. “Emmet, we really made some waves, didn’t we?” she said. We howled over drinks about the impact of the story and revenge she got on her old hometown.

Now, no one can strut like Nevelson. But I certainly did my best as I walked back to my table and my stunned, suddenly silent friends.

Don’t care about terrorists. Don’t care about crime and traffic. I will be at the Signature Theater in New York to see “The Occupant” when it opens.

Because fascinating women make the world go round.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmears@msn.com