Angela Lansbury
When it comes to qualifying as a Broadway star, one name would top the lists of everyone from see-every-show fanatics to casual theatergoers: Angela Lansbury. In fact, readers of Broadway.com said as much this year when they voted the 81-year old four-time Tony winner their Favorite Actress in a Broadway Play in our eighth annual Broadway.com Audience Awards for her performance in Terrence McNally's Deuce. The buzz, glamour and swirl of show-biz awards have become par for the course for a woman who, at age 20, received the first of three Oscar nominations for her film debut in the 1945 thriller Gaslight. And while Lansbury's Hollywood career has now spanned over 100 film and television roles, including a 12-year run as sleuthing Jessica Fletcher on the '80s hit Murder, She Wrote for which she garnered a dozen Emmy nominations and four Golden Globes, her heart has always belonged to Broadway. Debuting here in Hotel Paradiso in 1957, Lansbury secured her legendary status in the decades that followed with her indelible and Tony honored portrayals of Mame Dennis in Mame, Countess Aurelia in Dear World, Mama Rose in the first revival of Gypsy and Mrs. Lovett in the original Sweeney Todd. Now, having spent 24 years away from the theater district that the British-born actress loves so dearly, she's been nominated for a fifth Tony for her invigorating interpretation of a former tennis champion reunited with her doubles partner, played by another national treasure of the American theater, Marian Seldes. The week before the Tonys, Lansbury spoke with Broadway.com about her illustrious career, the reasons she believes the critics were nice to her in Deuce but not the play itself, her take on her Tony odds and what she believes a young actress must possess if she wants a successful life in the theater.
So, I must confess that when I was making coffee this morning, I found myself singing "There's a Parade in Town."
[Laughs.] Good for you that you even know it! It's surprising, but Anyone Can Whistle sort of resurfaces from time to time. It's always in some people's minds, but certainly the general public doesn't know it. It's kind of an "in" show.
Well, I've loved that original cast recording since I was a kid.
That was our last gasp, when we made that record. I always remember doing it. We were all so strung out and so miserable because we were closing. The whole thing had been a debacle in one way or other.
But it got your chops wet as a musical theater performer, which was the start of something very special.
Oh, yes, absolutely! It was the beginning of a career I wouldn't have had otherwise, so I'm deeply grateful for that. And for my association, subsequently, with Stephen [Sondheim] and with [writer/director] Arthur Laurents.
Seeing the remarkable display of photos from your great stage roles outside the Music Box Theatre made me think that Broadway has been a sort of home for you for 50 years. Is that accurate?
It is. It's the place I am most comfortable as an actress, let's put it that way. It's like Dolly: "I'm back where I belong" when I'm in the theater. It hasn't been the easiest thing for me to manage because television took a huge chunk of my life. [Murder, She Wrote] ran for 12 years, and it was wonderful because it allowed me to reach an enormous audience—an audience, I must tell you, that is now coming to see Deuce. It's so interesting to hear their comments, because they know me as Jessica Fletcher and here they're seeing me as Leona Mullen. So they're sort of tying me together in their own way, into a nice bundle of memory. And I think that's terrific.
Well, most of them are of an age and they know that I had this huge Broadway career. They know about Sweeney Todd, because they saw the taping we did for television. So they knew darn well that I was able to change my persona and become someone else! That I was a real actress, not just a face in their living room [laughs]. Most of them have been extraordinary in their understanding and acceptance of me in all these various modes.
At your age and stature in the business, you really needn't be onstage doing eight shows a week. But there you are. Was this kind of rigorous schedule, along with the stakes of debuting a new play, something you felt you needed to do again?
No. To be perfectly honest, I hadn't intended to. I was going to do Deuce at Primary Stages originally, on a very limited run. It was going to be an off-Broadway canter for me, and I loved the idea of doing something off-Broadway. I relished the opportunity. But no sooner had that been agreed upon than we were shuttled onto Broadway, because Scott Rudin, who's a great, great producer, came onboard, and Gerry Schoenfeld said, "Yes! The Music Box! Put her in there!" He always said to me, "Angie, if you ever want to do anything on Broadway, just tell me," and so this was it. And I found myself on Broadway for a much longer period of time doing eight performances a week, which I vowed I never would do again. But… here I am!
How did Deuce first come to your attention?
Well, Terrence McNally and I have known one another for many years. We were going to do The Visit together [in 2000], which I had to retire from because of my husband's ill health. But we've always maintained a good line of communication.
Any chance you'll re-visit The Visit?
No, I wouldn't say there's a prayer for that. No, not a prayer. I think it's constantly being revised, not by the authors, but certainly in the minds of producers. I'm not sure that there won't be other productions of it, though. Chita [Rivera] of course did it at the Goodman, but I don't think it's been done since then.
So what was it about Deuce that convinced you to do it?
Terrence called and said, "I'm going to send you a play, and I'd be interested to get your reaction." So I read it and I thought, "Gosh... what an interesting proposition this is." I knew when I was reading it that Marian [Seldes] was already settled in Terrence's mind, so I was thinking, "What a wonderful idea, the two of us doing this play." I only knew her through the Acting Company, which is a wonderful group I've active with for years and so has Marian. She was a great teacher at the Juilliard School. But I never worked with her. And so I thought, "Yes, dammit, I'll do it."
But weren't you planning on moving back to New York anyway? I remember reading something about that last fall.
I had been looking for something to take me away from doing nothing, really, in Los Angeles. And I had just bought a condo in New York, just to have one foot here, which I was very anxious to establish again. I've always been very happy in the city. I love my friends in the theater. I've always felt comfortable and accepted here. So it was easy for me to live here part-time. I still have family on the west coast, you know, and I love being with them too. But I felt at this time, as I was on my own, I could have an apartment here. Then suddenly this play entered the picture.
And how has the experience of Deuce been so far?
Well, it's been a revelation. To see how pleased an audience was to see this old face again—I've been enormously touched and buoyed up by it.
How about rehearsals?
Oh boy, learning this play was an experience, I can tell you. I knew it would be not an easy job, and I set aside a month. We didn't start rehearsals till March, so I came in a month early and spent all of February learning this play. And thank God I did. I had to re-train my memory! Memory in actors never leaves them, really, it just gets rusty. And I found that once I really set my mind to it, I could do it. But I wasn't sure... I wasn't sure I could, because I hadn't learned an entire play in quite a while. And especially this one, which is so complex and jumps in and out of the tennis game that's going on. It really took a tremendous amount of concentration and just putting my nose to the grindstone.
Well, people are thrilled to have you back onstage.
I feel it. I do. I'm very grateful for the kind of reception that I get.
Now, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you something delicate: Though you and Marian received wonderful reviews, the play itself didn't.
No. And I would like to speak to that, actually. Personally, I think that when you put a kind of old, revered name like mine and Marian's in a play, and when that curtain goes up and that audience responds as they do, it's extremely intimidating to a critic. I think we, in a way, are a disservice to Terrence's material. And I'm sorry to say that, but I really feel that.
Oh sure. In everything you do, every experience that you go through as an actress, discovering all the strengths and weaknesses given to the character is the fun of acting. Trying those moments, those kind of glass walls that suddenly reveal another part of an individual that you didn't suspect was there. I think that is the interesting part of sussing out a role. Playing Leona every day, every performance, there's something else that I find.
There's so much to this woman.
So much. But isn't there in all of us? This is what I think women, especially, find very interesting and telling about these characters. Particularly Leona, because of her rage at being glossed over by the fact that we as older women, except yours truly, suffer from becoming invisible as we age.
And the way Leona comes straight on about the subject of death, I found bold. It's a topic McNally ponders in many of his plays, but in Deuce the character is really out to make peace with it. Did that hold any importance for you?
Yes, it's very important that I recognize and understand exactly how—and this is what I'm hoping that I get across—I am acting this role of this woman who is trying to settle all this negativity she's attached to her life, due to what she considers her great failing, which was her inability to bring off a Grand Slam. It seems ridiculous, but we all have something in our lives that we feel we've failed at. If it's not winning a tennis match, it's making a marriage work. It's succeeding with a child. There are millions of reasons why individuals feel they've failed in life, and those things tend to molder in our subconscious and very often taint the middle years, because it's too late to do anything about it, you know?
Do you have your own battles like that?
Oh, of course I do. I wouldn't be much of a person if I didn't [laughs].
How have you overcome them?
You simply have to keep examining and realizing that, at the time, you did what you could, which was in your understanding to deal with it. We can only do what we feel is right at the time. We mustn't keep faulting ourselves.
Is it safe to say that in Deuce, underneith Leona's piss and vinegar, she's really looking for a way to forgive herself?
It is. She has to forgive herself as we all have to forgive ourselves, finally, because we're all mortal. We're all incapable, you know, we're not Jesus Christ. We have to have a good cry and... get on with it.
I'd like to ask you a bit about some of the other great characters you've played. The first time I saw you onstage was in Maryland at the Painter's Mill Music Fair in Gypsy. I was 9.
Oh, oh, gosh [laughs].
Do you have a favorite memory of that show?
My goodness... hundreds. Gypsy was a huge, huge event in my theatrical life. I was astounded. This totally absorbing character. And singing-wise, it took every ounce of my vocal energy. But the great moment for me, I have to tell you, was opening Gypsy in London at the Piccadilly Theatre. You talk about a moment in a career—going back to London for the first time in a musical which had never been seen on the British stage? Merman never played it in London. Nobody had ever played it in London. They were transfixed. They absolutely gave me the most wonderful greeting and ovation and every possible award you could think of. Then, of course, it was almost topped by my coming back to New York with it and having the success we did at the Winter Garden.
How about Mame?
Well, let me tell you this, I just had some of the original cast of Mame to my house in Ireland.
Really?!
Yes! There were dancers, singers. Then we all took off on a tour. I can't describe what it is, but it's still just like a huge family of people to me. We had a wonderful week together.
Are you still close with the Sweeney Todd folks?
Sweeney Todd, same thing. You know, George [Hearn] and Len [Cariou] and Victor Garber and I still keep in touch. But we do that in the theater. I don't think I'm unique in that respect at all. Some of the cast are no longer with us; John Eric Williams is dead, but the rest of them, we all see one another. When you have a company and you're the leader in the pack, which I was in some instances, not in Sweeney Todd necessarily, but certainly in everything else, it's a family. It's a group of people who are interdependent on each other every night.
We've been asking our Tony nominees their feelings about the awards. You've won four, which gives you a very unique perspective. Did any one of those give you more satisfaction than the others?
Um… no. I can't say that.
[Pause] Dear World was a surprise, even though I loved the score. I actually loved the show! Incidentally, I have been putting Jerry Herman's name up for the Kennedy Center Award for five years or more and he's got to get that. I'm sorry, but I'm really on a soapbox about it. That this man has been overlooked all these years is a crime. I don't understand how it hasn't happened already, but I'm praying that this will be his year. I'll certainly beat the drum for him.
Then he's in good hands! How about for you? Are competitive with the Tonys?
No, I'm not. No way. In Deuce I'm playing a very showy part, and I kind of thought it was likely that I would be nominated. It is extremely unlikely that I could win because there are some extraordinary performances in the same category and I've seen most of them. The only one I didn't see is Eve Best. I know what the crowd is about, and it would be very unjust, in a way, for me to get it out of sentiment. It's not going to happen.
From Broadway to Hollywood, you've had a lot of experience with awards and nominations. Are there any you'd like to win again? Or get another shot at?
I'd like to get another shot at an Oscar, yes. I say that just for the fun of it. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not ambitious to the point where I have to, you know, but if it happened it would be lovely.
I know your mom, Moyna MacGill, was an actress. Was there anything she taught you that you still carry onstage with you today?
Well, she taught me a hell of a lot as a kid. But she didn't do it in a teacher way, she did it by example. She did it by the roles she played that I watched her in. She was in a movie called The Clock with Judy Garland. She had a kind of a lunch counter scene with Keenan Wynn, and I remember Pauline Kael gave her the most wonderful review in The New Yorker because it was one of the best comedy moments of that particular movie season. My mother was a wonderful comedian, and part of her artistry, I think, came from her Irishness. I've always given her credit for the comedy I have innately in my makeup. It's not American. It's not English. It's Irish, and thank God for it. That I got from my mother. Also her acute sensitivity and ability to listen. That was one thing she really taught me: to listen. To not always be thinking of what you're going to say next, but to think about what that person you are speaking to is telling you.
So if there was one piece of advice you could give to a young actress today looking to make a life in the theater, what would it be?
Have a bit of talent. Only a little bit, as Leona says [laughs]. It takes a rather unexpected understanding of human mentality to become an actress. You have to understand what it is that makes people the way they are, and that requires a lot of emotional research. I think young people find their own ways. But for actors starting today, they really have to think about life and think about people of every area of life, unless they want to just play themselves and be attractive and be lovely personalities. Anybody can do that. If they want to play something that is off the norm, then they really have to look around and absorb. Keeping their eyes open, noting how people react, how they evade, how they promote themselves or how they recede as individuals. All of these things are there for the picking if they just keep looking around at the tremendous lot of human nature. And listen.
See Angela Lansbury in Deuce at the Music Box Theatre.
