She was swell, she was nice, she had all of Broadway on her plate.
Angela Lansbury, a titan of stage, movie and tv died Tuesday at 96.
The denizens of Shubert Alley had been overcome with grief and shock after they realized of the actress’ passing. Lansbury, a mainstay since 1944, had an everlasting high quality that recommended she’d by no means go away. And in quiet moments on the levels and within the hallways of the storied theaters surrounding Instances Sq., certainly she gained’t.
“Dim Broadway’s lights?” mentioned a theater agent. “Shut em’ down.”
After all, due to the ubiquity of TV, Lansbury was greatest often known as Jessica Fletcher on the TV collection “Homicide She Wrote.” She additionally had an illustrious résumé on the large display in motion pictures corresponding to “The Image of Dorian Grey” and “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Nevertheless it’s the indelible stamp she made on Broadway that modified an artwork kind and New York.
The remarkably transformative British actress boasted an electrifying presence that was a uncommon storm of contradictions: maternal and brutal, hilarious and heartbroken, elegant and muddy. And what she achieved from 1966 to 1980, I reckon, is a breadth of supersize, completely reverse roles that no different star of her magnitude has matched in such a brief period of time since.
In 1966, there was “Mame” on the Winter Backyard Theatre. She wasn’t the primary alternative for the a part of Mame Dennis, a witty, fun-loving New Yorker who “made us really feel alive once more, and given us the drive once more.” That was Mary Martin. However composer Jerry Herman mentioned “Whats up, Angie!” and pushed arduous for Lansbury. (He additionally solid her in his short-lived “Pricey World” in 1969.) She knew she wanted the function and snagged her prize after three auditions. Watch her and co-star Bea Arthur sing “Bosom Buddies” on the Tony Awards.
Then — don’t stand up — instantly watch her scorching rendition of “Rose’s Flip” from 1974’s “Gypsy.” That finale track, an at all times scary soliloquy sung by a ravenous stage mom who feels deep down that her youngsters have robbed her of fame, was made past vicious and acidic by Lansbury. She traded Mame for a monster.
And again once more! She went from loathing youngsters to instructing them to “whistle a contented tune” — for 2 weeks as Anna in 1977’s “The King and I” on the Uris (now Gershwin) Theatre.
We could dance … or lets kill?
As the unique, good Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” in 1979 on the Uris, she barked in a cockney accent, had a weird double-bun hairdo and garish make-up. She was a co-conspiring murderess, who threw round her elbows like machetes and baked corpses into pies.
Later in life — not leaving Broadway behind — she largely starred in performs, save for a genteel flip as Madame Armfeldt within the 2009 revival of Sondheim’s “A Little Evening Music” with Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Lansbury appeared in Terrence McNally’s 2007 play “Deuce” alongside Marian Seldes as two retired tennis companions reminiscing concerning the previous. Her ultimate Broadway present was in Gore Vidal’s “The Greatest Man” in 2012.
I noticed her in 2009 in “Blithe Spirit” because the wacky mystic Madame Arcati. Rupert Everett and Christine Ebersole starred in Noel Coward’s comedy, too, however it was Lansbury in a smaller half that rocked the stage.
When the manufacturing arrived at London’s Gielgud Theatre in 2014, the actress acquired her Damehood from Queen Elizabeth through the run. That day, the theater’s proprietor Cameron Waterproof coat added the phrase “Dame” to the gold nameplate on her dressing room.
Oh so appropriately, Dame Angela Lansbury had dressing room No. 1 — simply the spot for an incomparable expertise that we’ll by no means see the likes of once more.
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