Movie Musings: Disney and More

Angela Lansbury: Entertainment, She Wrote

Angela Lansbury has 70-year career in show business and was one of the very first actors ever to make it big in Film, Television, and Broadway, (including two roles in two beloved Disney films). Across the mediums, she played a variety of women that range from a determined detective, a ruthless maternal communist, a spoiled princess, an ambitious apprentice witch, a neglectful stage mother, and even a friendly, cockney teapot. Bringing believability, vivacity, and sheer talent, Dame Angela Lansbury has one of the most extraordinary bodies of work ever, and I thought we would explore that in this blog.

Angela Brigid Lansbury was born in Regent’s Park, London, England on October 16th, 1925. Her father, Edgar Lansbury, was a British politician and timber merchant and her mother was actress Moyna Macgill. Angela’s father unfortunately died of stomach cancer when she was 9 years old, and when WW2 broke out through Britain, Angela relocated to the United States with her mother and younger brothers, Bruce and Edgar. There she was fortunate enough to gain a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing where studied at the Feagin School of Drama and Radio in New York City. Soon, she was headed for Hollywood.    

Angela Lansbury agreed to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at the age of 18 and made her film debut in the movie Gaslight (1944), earning an Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actress. While she lost that year to Ethel Barrymoore in None But the Lonely Hart (1944), she was nominated the following year again in the category of Best Supporting Actress for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). She lost again that year to Anne Revere in National Velvet (1945), but was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. She received another Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe as well as her third and final Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nomination for her performance as Mrs. Eleanor Shaw Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate (1962)—arguably one of her best film performances! Despite these accolades, Lansbury grew tired of being cast as a supporting player in movies, and decided to have a crack at Broadway.

Lansbury’s first starring role on stage came at the age of 41 in the role of Mame Dennis in the musical Mame starring opposite close friend Beatrice Arthur as Vera Charles. “Mame,” opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in May 1966 to rave reviews, and Lansbury and Arthur both won Tony Awards for their performances. Lansbury won a second Tony three years later in 1969 for her performance in the musical, The Madwoman of Chaillot. Her success on Broadway allowed her to return to movies.     

Angela Lansbury’s first film appearance in the 1970s was in Something for Everyone (1970), opposite Michael York. The very next year, Lansbury made her first Disney film appearance in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Julie Andrews was offered the role of Miss Eglantine Price before Lansbury was cast, but declined.  (Ironically, Lansbury had also been in consideration for the role of Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins (1964) before Andrews was cast in that role.) “Bedknobs,” featured many of the same members of the cast and crew behind “Poppins,” including actors David Tomlinson, Arthur Malet, and Reginald Owen, as well as composers/lyricists Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, co-producer Bill Walsh, screenwriter Don DaGradi, and director Robert Stevenson. “Bedknobs,” was also Lansbury’s first movie-musical role as a leading lady. For both “Bedknobs,” and “Something for Everyone,” she received Golden Globe Nominations for Best Actress in a Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy.  

20 years after “Bedknobs,” Angela Lansbury was re-hired by the Walt Disney Studios to provide the voice of the character of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast (1991). (Ironically, Julie Andrews was also in consideration for the role of Mrs. Potts as well before Lansbury accepted this part.) Lansbury was at first, intimidated at the idea of singing the “Beauty and the Beast” title song in the film when she was sent the demo by Composer Alan Menken and Lyricist Howard Ashman. Menken and Ashman had recorded the demo of the song as though it were a rock’and’roll song, but she reconsidered thanks to co-directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise.

When it came time to record the song, Lansbury had to fly from L.A. to New York to record the song with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and her flight was delayed due to a bomb scare. Producer Don Hahn offered to postpone the recording, but Lansbury insisted that she would still come in. By the time her flight landed, Hahn offered again to postpone the recording, but Lansbury still was intent on coming in to record the song. By the time she got there, she recorded the song with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in one take, and that take wound up being used in the final cut of the film. Her accolades continued with a Grammy Award for Best Album Recording for Children (“Beauty and the Beast”). In addition to all her work on Film, Broadway, and Television, she became known to millions for her work on the eighties TV hit, Murder, She Wrote (1984-1996).

Lansbury has also done many other special appearances for Disney. She made a cameo as a presenter to one of the animated segments in Fantasia 2000 (1999) and narrated the documentaries Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Still the Fairest of Them All (2001) and The Age of Believing: The Disney Live-Action Classics (2008). She also appeared in the film Nanny McPhee (2005) opposite Emma Thompson who is currently succeeding her in the role of Mrs. Potts in Disney’s live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast (2017) She will next be seen as the Balloon Lady in Disney’s sequel to “Poppins,” Mary Poppins Returns (2018).

She was awarded a well-deserved Honorary Oscar for her incredible body of work in 2014. And at 91 years of age, Dame Angela Lansbury is showing no signs of retirement at all!