Funny thing is that she almost always played older than her true age, often devious characters - the maid in Gaslight, the trashy dance hall mistress in The Harvey Girls, the corrupt mayoress in Anyone Can Whistle, the mother from hell in The Manchurian Candidate. Then she got the glamour treatment for Mame, andby the time she did the revival in 1983, she could play younger!
I finally got to see Angela Lansbury onstage in the revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, and she was wonderful, the best part of an entertaining but flawed production. That her performance as Mame never was preserved on film is, at the risk of being hyperbolic, a tragedy.
That her performance as Mame never was preserved on film is, at the risk of being hyperbolic, a tragedy.
Indeed. Not using Angela was part and parsel of the backward thinking of the whole movie...and at a time when a movie musical needed forward thinking ( they still do) . Am I the only one to remember Baskin and Robbins had a Mame flavor for the movie ? The PR push was remarkable. But all the PR ducks in a row could not heal the mistake at the core.
I saw her in "The picture of Dorian Gray" she was very young then !
ReplyDeleteFunny thing is that she almost always played older than her true age, often devious characters - the maid in Gaslight, the trashy dance hall mistress in The Harvey Girls, the corrupt mayoress in Anyone Can Whistle, the mother from hell in The Manchurian Candidate. Then she got the glamour treatment for Mame, andby the time she did the revival in 1983, she could play younger!
Deleteamazing! i always loved her, even though i never saw her on stage...must have been a life experience! thanx, as always, for your kindness on sharing!
ReplyDeleteI finally got to see Angela Lansbury onstage in the revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, and she was wonderful, the best part of an entertaining but flawed production. That her performance as Mame never was preserved on film is, at the risk of being hyperbolic, a tragedy.
DeleteThat her performance as Mame never was preserved on film is, at the risk of being hyperbolic, a tragedy.
DeleteIndeed. Not using Angela was part and parsel of the backward thinking of the whole movie...and at a time when a movie musical needed forward thinking ( they still do) . Am I the only one to remember Baskin and Robbins had a Mame flavor for the movie ? The PR push was remarkable. But all the PR ducks in a row could not heal the mistake at the core.
She played Hedy Lamarr's OLDER sister in Samson and Delilah. Angela was 23 - and Hedy was 35!!!
ReplyDelete