The death was reported tonight of the Anglo-American actress Angela Lansbury. She appeared in Stephen Sondheim’s first success, Anyone Can Whistle, and later in Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music.
She was never less than terrific.
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RIP.
We love you.
She was also a much better actress than she was given credit for. Most Americans associate her with the TV program Murder She Wrote but she was at her sinister best in the original version of The Manchurian Candidate. RIP!
She was absolutely terrific in that film, that’s for sure. Catch her early in her career in Gaslight, too.
I do think most people, American or otherwise, know her for a large resume of roles including The Manchurian Candidate, The Harvey Girls, and Sweeney Todd, not just for Murder, She Wrote.
She was grand…listening and watching her, it is as though she
were still here…she is so present, in her art. Lucky to have
had a life circumscribed by her
art and humor. She was unique.
I humbly suggest that “Anyone Can Whistle” was after “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To the Forum.” The latter was a success, and the former, well, it does have a cult following. “Forum” was, I think, Sondheim’s first both music-and-lyrics success, and the first of his shows to be filmed.
I saw Lansbury three times as Mrs. Lovett on Broadway. She was completely electrifying and there was nobody like her. She also seems to have been a very likeable person. Interestingly, there was a small NY Times article in the early 80s noting that the same team that brought Sweeney Todd to Broadway was adapting Sunset Boulevard for Lansbury. Of course, it did wind up on Broadway, but without Sondheim and without Lansbury–who soon decamped for broader fame on television. I always wondered what impact Lansbury and Sondheim would have had on that property.
Saw her in Blythe Spirit here in London and even in her old age she was magnificent. Also, a wonderful dancer and singer. She retained her British citizenship and was made a Dame by HM the Queen and won numerous awards -Tony’s; Olivier etc.
Thank you, Norman
Angela Lansbury scored a triumph in ‘Mame’. She was a very versatile actress and brought class and distinction to everything she participated in, stage, screen and TV. We miss you, Angela. Rest in peace.
“She was never less than terrific.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
She WAS terrific in everything she did – stage, big screen, small screen. She had the sparkle, the gift of communication, the beauty, the absolute naturalness.
Love you, Angela! I’ll be seeing you backstage after the show….
I remember driving in my car in 1973 or so and tuned in to an interview with Angela Lansbury. After such overwhelming successes in musical theater, she was asked what was next on her agenda. Fully aware of her own abilities–and without any sense of conceit–she said “I don’t want to fritter this all away.” (Yes, she said “fritter”!). Clearly, she did not miss a beat.
RIP, and thank you Ms. Lansbury. I actually smile whenever I think of you.
Loved your comment: “She was never less than terrific.”
I had the privilege of seeing her in “Gypsy” at the Kennedy Center back in 1974. A thrilling evening when I first encountered that voice, that personality, that aura, that acting.
Angela and Len Cariou in Sweeney Todd in what was then the Uris (now the Gershwin) Theater in NY in 1979: Still the greatest theater experience of my earthly existence.
Picture of Dorian Gray (1945): Broke our hearts.
Manchurian Candidate (1962): Everyone’s favorite Worst Mother Ever.
RIP Angela.
P.S. Orchestra tickets for Sweeney Todd in 1979: $22 US.
It’s a rare artist who can genuinely, and without pretense, truly inspire such accolades from seasoned theater and film aficionados and six year old children…my kids, who know her as the amateur witch in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, were just as sad about this news as many of you. That’s range; that’s talent.
A hard-to-find gem: Hal Prince’s 1970 film “Something for Everyone” in which Lansbury plays an Austrian dowager countess, desperate to marry off her (closeted gay) son to rich, social climbing Americans. Every word, every gesture is a bit of comic perfection (and it’s worth watching to see her blasé expression as she, dressed in a dirndl, oversees the village celebration of the reopening of the castle).
There can never be another Mame for me, another Mrs Lovett …