Rupert Everett on Angela Lansbury

[Will42]

From Mr. Everett's new memoirs:

Angela Lansbury — in a coral silk dressing gown, a rust-coloured wig and panda eye make-up — sits in a tiny pink room with a pink sofa and no natural light. She’s doing her lips in the mirror.
As I enter her dressing room, she pecks at my reflection in the glass and goes on with her work.

Depending on her mood, or whom she’s talking to, she speaks either English or American. With her fans, she’s Jessica Fletcher. With me, she’s Miss Marple.
‘Good house tonight?’ she asks.

It’s week five of Blithe Spirit, in which we’re both starring on Broadway.
Angela plays Madame Arcati, the clairvoyant, originally played by Dame Margaret Rutherford, and has the funniest lines. Her entrance on stage sometimes extends for five whole minutes while the rest of us stand around and she beams star quality across the footlights, nodding modestly and waving her public on with subtle movements of encouragement.

‘I’ve just seen a picture of your latest facelift,’ teases Angela, waving a gossip rag that features a double-page before and after spread. ‘Don’t,’ I groan.

An editor has published a bloated mugshot of my so-called botched facelift. ‘Well, at least they’re talking about you!’ says Angela.
She’s charming and reserved, with flint-sharp ambition under her cape and galoshes. She has the eyes of an owl and the tenacity of a mountain goat.

Angela’s from the old school: outwardly very friendly, ultimately detached. Old-fashioned descriptions suit Angela best. She’s a good sport. A lady. But she’s also 83, and as any seasoned Broadway star knows, needs to divide her energies judiciously. Most of hers go into her performance. Then her fans.

Many of them have loved her since Gaslight. Each night, they’re fork-lifted from buses in knots of Zimmer frames and walking sticks. They always love the show.

Afterwards, they gather wild-eyed in lines outside Angela’s door, proffering autograph books with shaky hands. She receives them in the doorway like a headmistress preparing for bed — clutching their hands but pushing them firmly out at the same time.

On stage, she takes no prisoners, grabbing all the reviews and a Tony award, leaving the rest of us dazed and confused in her undertow.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2204811/Death-Natasha-Richardson-plunged-Rupert-Everett-strangest-scene-life.html#ixzz26q8Cztjt


I have to say, that's pretty much how I imagine Ms. Lansbury to be in real life: down-to-earth, sane, nice, but tough, non-nonsense person. Basically, anti-diva.

Have any of you met Ms. Lansbury socially or worked with her? Would love to read your perspective.
Her close friend and fellow co-star Bea Arthur, once said that Angela Lansbury has the mouth of a longshoreman, but I'm not sure if she really meant that or was just joking.

As for Everett, I saw him up close during Blithe Spirit's run and his face looked absolutely natural. No to mention that it's impossible to have a plastic surgery when you performing 8 times per week on stage. By the way, Angela Lansbury has never made a secret about having some work done.

[Kad]

Too bad he's a self-loathing dirtbag.

[DAME]

Yeah. He is not a very nice man.

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Rupert Everett...ugh. Was he the one who was directly/indirectly involved in a famous director having a heart attack and dying? I forget the name of the famous British director. from rC in Austin, Texas

[Jordan Catalano]

John Doyle?

[Wynbish]

Admittedly, when I saw that Rupert had something to say about Angela, I was ready for some rude, bitter words. Pleased to see that I was wrong.

[EricMontreal22]

John Shlesinger (I prob spelled his name wrong) who directed him and Madonna in Next Best Thing. It already seemed kinda too bad he was doing that movie--having once done Midnight Cowboy, Sunday Bloody Sunday, etc, but I know there was always gossip that the stree on the set (I think usually blamed on Madge) helped do him in.

I wish he would shut up, as the other thread says. He has a not huge role on Parade's End right now and is perfect for the part, so I was thinking I might be able to enjoy him on screen again more.

[whatever2]

i'm just trying to erase from my mind the image of rupert everett *on* angela lansbury ...

someone pass the brain bleach?!?!?

[CurtainPullDowner]

The thought of Rupert Everett "on" Angela Lansbury creeps me out.

[Will42]

LOL, well, sorry.

[Broadwayhunk]

The man is damaged, which is sad. What makes it worse is that he feels the need to spread his sickness to others.

[Leadingplayer]

"As for Everett, I saw him up close during Blithe Spirit's run and his face looked absolutely natural."




Then you need to go to an eye doctor real soon.

[GavestonPS]

Admittedly, when I saw that Rupert had something to say about Angela, I was ready for some rude, bitter words. Pleased to see that I was wrong.

Indeed. In response to the OP, yes, I worked with Angela on a couple of shows in Florida in the mid-1970s and absolutely adored her, onstage and off. I find Everett's character sketch pretty apt.

Yes, she carefully marshals her energies. Yes, she can handle a crowd of fans swiftly yet with kindness. I'm sure she does have a spine of steel, but how could she have maintained such a career (thanks to TV she's an even bigger star now than when I knew her) without one?

Yes, I'm sure she knows how to milk entrance applause, but isn't that what her fans pay for, to shower their love and admiration on Angie? (We always talk about applause as a tribute to the actor's ego and of course it is; but it is also an expression of joy by the audience. There's no virtue in denying the spectators what is very much "their" moment, too.)

[justoldbill]

My one experience was backstage at the Uris after a performance of SWEENEY TODD. Exhausted as she must have been, she was a model of graciousness to ALL the fans, and even did a boarding house reach over two other people to sign my ANYONE CAN WHISTLE album. I suppose she has her favorite shows, too.

[GavestonPS]

A friend of mine in Miami sent Angela a letter after seeing her in GYPSY and MAME. The friend received a three or four-page, handwritten letter in response. That was before MURDER, SHE WROTE and I doubt Angela has time for such letters nowadays.

My friend would have been thrilled with a two-line response; a three-page letter to an aspiring actor was an act of extreme kindness.

Another friend invited Angela to a student production of a Restoration Comedy at UCLA. Angela came to see it.

I was fortunate enough to spend Christmas of 1976 as a guest at a party given by Angela and her husband in their Miami hotel suite. She could not have been a more humble or attentive hostess, doing all the carving and pouring herself.

So while it's fair to say she had to be ambitious to achieve what she has achieved. To portray her as nothing more than that would be grossly unfair.

[Will42]

Thank you very much! It¯s nice to know that Ms. Lansbury is not only a great actress, but a also a wonderful, gracious lady.

[Ed_Mottershead]

I'll never forget the ovation Angela received at curtain's rise in Duece that marked her return to the stage after years of Murder, She Wrote. Real love poured onto the stage where the applause said Welcome Back, Angela, please stay here forever. I've never spoken with her but have seen her offstage at various functions -- she's a class act if there ever was one.

Sorry to hear that Rupert has offended so many people -- the one time I did speak with him, he was gracious and quite charming. I must have caught him on one of his good days.

[GavestonPS]

Yes, it's peculiar that after Mame, Gypsy, Mrs. Lovett and Anna in THE KING AND I (I didn't see DEAR WORLD), it took a trifle such as MURDER, SHE WROTE to make Lansbury a truly national star. (Before her TV success, she was huge in New York and Miami Beach and certain other cities, but not as big in others.)

But that's show biz.

***

You are quite welcome, Will. She's a great lady and I never mind talking about her.

[D2]

I've told this story before but...

SWEENEY TODD was running when I was in college studying graphic design. We had to create a poster for anything we liked using only pen and ink. I designed a poster for the show and then sent it backstage for the cast to autograph. When I went to pick it up after a performance, Ms. Lansbury was just coming out the stage door. She saw the poster in my hand, and stopped to tell me how wonderful she thought it was and wished me luck in my career as a designer.

Years later I was in Bloomingdale's pawing voraciously through a sale bin next to a lady who was as energetic as I was. It was Lansbury. We looked at each other -- of course I recognized her, but I was very surprised that she remembered having met me. She wasn't exactly sure when or where we'd met, but once I mentioned the poster it all came back to her and she couldn't have been more complimentary. Again.

I'd been a huge fan of hers since "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" when I was a child; I fell in love with her that afternoon.

[EricMontreal22]

"Yes, it's peculiar that after Mame, Gypsy, Mrs. Lovett and Anna in THE KING AND I (I didn't see DEAR WORLD), it took a trifle such as MURDER, SHE WROTE to make Lansbury a truly national star. (Before her TV success, she was huge in New York and Miami Beach and certain other cities, but not as big in others.) "

I know this isn't what you meant, but I don't find that peculiar at all, actually. Sadly. Angela's stage career really flourished just as stage actors were getting a lot less attention outside theatre cities--unless they did have a hit tv show it seemed.

[henrikegerman]

Refreshing to read something relatively nice from Everett, who has become a singularly petty, annoying and bitter man.

[GavestonPS]

I know this isn't what you meant, but I don't find that peculiar at all, actually. Sadly. Angela's stage career really flourished just as stage actors were getting a lot less attention outside theatre cities--unless they did have a hit tv show it seemed.

It's true, Eric. "Peculiar" was the wrong word as I'm well aware that television is the dominant medium of the age.

What WAS peculiar was that before MURDER SHE WROTE, I was told that Lansbury drew widely varying crowds in different cities. I know she was huge in Ft. Lauderdale and Miami Beach: in the latter city, we had a line 2 blocks long just hoping for cancellations for the final matinee of MAME. And that meant standing in the August heat! (As it turned out, we had only 1 cancellation and a near riot!)

But I heard she would sell out in Kansas City and then play to half-empty houses in St. Louis. (Or maybe vice versa. I can't actually remember where she was popular except where I worked.) So her fame as a theater star was oddly erratic.

Nobody could explain it then, but I trust the TV show has made quite a difference. Of course, now she doesn't have to tour.

In general, however, you are right: unless a Broadway star got to repeat the role in the film (rare), s/he wasn't a true "name" to folks in Ohio. (South Florida audiences were mostly ex-New Yorkers, so they knew Lansbury from Broadway.)

[EricMontreal22]

Right, I get the sense that even through the 50s, Broadway names did have more of an impact (back when papers nationwide would be more likely to write about Cat on a Hot Tin Roof--before the movie), etc. TV did go back to using a ton of theatre talent, particularly when it was more New York based, but it was a different culture-- and of course even earlier most of the New York stars would tour with their shows, or in vaudeville or whatever.

[henrikegerman]

Eric, perhaps that coincides with the shift from obc recordings being bestsellers to being niche.

[GavestonPS]

Exactly, Henrik. Oh, for the day when "Original Cast Recordings" and "Soundtracks" were not only separate sections, but each was among the largest sections in the record store!

Another concurrent factor was the decline of the Ed Sullivan show and it's eventual demise in 1971. People like my folks, who rarely went to live theater until I began dragging them because I needed a ride, "knew" Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle and were outraged because Warner didn't give her the film role. Of course, they'd never seen her on stage, but they had seen her do songs and scenes on Ed Sullivan, so they felt as if they had. Ditto with CAMELOT.

They went to see MARY POPPINS (a rare event) BECAUSE it starred Julie Andrews; Andrews didn't become a star to them because of the film.

[EricMontreal22]

Very good points.

I do think Ed Sullivan died off partly because of other factors--it wasn't it's death that caused those factors (if that made sense), but it definitely was one of the last times you saw that kinda thing in the mainstream (i'd be curious to know what the ratings rank was of Sullivan for its last years).

Of course before tv, radio variety shows (as well as things like all those radio versions of films and plays using New York actors) served a similar function. I have no idea if all of this was also partly effected by the extreme rise of a teen/youth culture (of course teens became something of a force to be dealt with by WWII, but...). And films themselves, up though the 60s, predominently adapted plays, often with at least some of the stage stars amongst Hollywood names, if they were adaptations--I've heard it argued more often than books, which became a much larger source over plays by the 70s.

My moher was born in 1948, but never had a TV until she was married in the 70s, and while her parents went to New York to see shows maybe every five years, she didn't closely follow them at all. Still, she knew all about the Julie Andrews thing you mention--which I assume was big news everywhere, etc. She says she dragged her friends to Mary Poppins (who all were at the age where they felt silly seeing a family movie) becaue she had heard how Julie deserved My Fair Lady.

(I have to admit, I even remember in the late 80s when the local mall CD stores I went to had seperate sections for cast albums and soundtracks--although they weren't massive, but now at the remaining CD shops we still have, you simply never find that).