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Angela Lansbury: From Venomous Vamp to Lovable Aunty

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Actually, from my experience it’s the other way ’round.

I just watched the Harvey Girls where the woman I first knew as a lovable witch played Judy Garland‘s vampish rival for John Hodiak‘s affection.  Probably because I had first seen her in Bedknobs and Broomsticks where I was a very young’un, she always had that aunt-like (avauntular?) quality, you know like your mother’s eccentric older sister who would take you on crazy adventures and showed you a kind of quasi-maternal devotion that made you feel like you were part of something.

That image was reinforced when I would occasionally catch an episode of Murder, She Wrote where she played the very lovable Jessica Fletcher.

Then, I became a movie buff and started discovering her pre-Bedknobs work.  First, it was The Manchurian Candidate where she played the devouring mother, quite the opposite of Jessica Fletcher and the beloved Miss Price.  Then, she was the lower class hussy eager to advance her career by helping out a conniving older man extract money from an innocent fellow female in Gaslight and Kind Lady.

In State of the Union, she was the manipulative other woman eager to advance her lover’s career, even if it meant compromising his ideals and further alienating him from his wife.  And then, last night, she resumed the vampish role in The Harvey Girls.

Interesting how someone who could get a start with such roles would later find her niche in more maternal roles, becoming best known for playning the beloved author of murder mysteries.

Comments

  1. Ah, a musical theatre post. 😉

    There was a YouTube submission of Ms. Lansbury singing "Not While I’m Around" from Sweeny Todd at a benefit concert after 9/11. Take-some-time-to-calm-the-kids-down sort of thing. But, they appear to have taken it down. It was beautiful and backed by a children’s choir.

    But of course, in the play the song was a cover for Mrs. Lovett to soothe little Toby before she turned him over to Todd…

    Oh, well. it was a really challenging role and I loved her for it.

    Best wishes,
    -MFS

  2. As a thought from the side, I am constantly confronted with the politics of the modern star and never troubled by the politics of the old studio system actor.

    Angela Lansbury was born to act and she has stayed on the screen and stage throughout her adult life cycle. That was not uncommon among the actors who tended to business and let “greater causes” be handled by others.

    Jack Paar once tried to get his guest Peter Lorre to talk about studying with Freud. Lorre decisively informed Paar that an actor’s audience did not want anything to intrude upon the role he was playing. Very smart. And very Freudian.

    Angela Lansbury, like Peggy Wood, Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, and even Bette Davis has kept he craft from being corrupted by her blathering political opinions. There is a lesson there.

  3. Miss Lansbury’s earlier work demonstrates her incredible range.

    She came to MGM about the same time as Miss Deborah Kerr.

    Miss Kerr wanted to break from the prim-and-proper roles; hence, the iconic From Here To Eternity. Miss Lansbury wanted to go in the opposite direction, from vamp to lovable aunty.

    Both ladies succeeded magnificently.

  4. I always thought that the Meryl Streep Manchurian mother vs. the Angela Lansbury version showed the difference between a great performance and a masterpiece. Streep was good; Lansbury was archetypal. I have no idea why anyone remade that movie given that Sinatra was brilliant and Lansbury was timeless.

  5. Unfortunately, MFS already beat me to “Sweeny Todd” …

    The role of Mrs. Lovett was clearly customized for Angela Lansbury’s strengths. Listen to Lansbury working through the unbelievably long phrases to “The Worst Pies In London” – that piece had to have been written specifically for her. An interesting angle is that the Mrs. Lovett character is simultaneously sinister and cloyingly domestic – a fusion of the two themes in Mrs. Lansbury’s career.

    So far as I know, her performance was never filmed. A shame.

  6. I loved AL as Rose in The Pirates of Penzance (with Kevin Kline/Rex Smith/Linda Ronstadt) in the early ’80’s. Patricia Routledge played the part in the stage version with the same cast, and it was not the same…

  7. I loved Lansbury in “The Manchurian Candidate”, but a small part of me dreams of seeing the film with Sinatra’s original suggestion for the part of Mrs. Islin…Lucille Ball. The mind reels.

    I remember once meeting a guy who worked on “Murder, She Wrote.”

    “My mom loves that show,” I said.

    “Everyone’s mom loves that show.” he replied.

  8. Will Krebs: (#5)

    You’re in luck: During the LA leg of their travelling show in 1982, they videotaped a live performance of Sweeny Todd. I highly recommend it.

    Lou Cariou had already been replaced by George Hearn, but otherwise it’s the original cast.

    It’s a testament to Lansbury’s strength that when Burton did his cinematic version, he advised Bonham-Carter to just play the role understated. He said in interviews that you just couldn’t out-do Lansbury and that the play should really have just been called "Mrs. Lovett."

    Best wishes,
    -MFS

  13. Help, I’m trapped in an alternate universe where gays haven’t heard of Mame, the campiest role ever, and the highpoint of Angela’s musical theater career. She played opposite the late Bea Arthur.