Angela Lansbury | 60 Minutes Archive

60 Minutes rewind for 11 years Jessica Fletcher also known as Angela Lansbury was 60-minute Sunday night neighbor and then last year she moved out well she didn't exactly move out she was evicted CBS in an effort to attract a younger crowd to the neighborhood decided she was let's say demographically undesirable so Murder She Wrote moved from its traditional Sunday night slot to Thursday nights and all hell broke girls Angela Lansbury was Furious you knew it wasn't going to work oh of course of course we knew um it it amazed us it surprised us it shocked us we could have told him that Sunday night can never be any anything other than a family night because it has been for all these years Murder She Wrote broke a lot of Records it was the highest rated drama series for nine consecutive seasons 43 other shows went against it and were clobbered and to millions of adoring fans Angela Lansbury became Jessica Fletcher she's a feisty broad much more so than I am she's nosy and she's perceptive far more perceptive than I am it sounds like you really um determined who she was it wasn't the the people who who wrote the scripts you decided the woman's character they gave me the outline I absolutely did they filled her into a certain extent but I find that male writers as a whole don't know how to write women therefore you you have to put that in yourself and I did I used to fight and squabble and and and get on their backs about writing her as a real person she was athletic she was fun she wasn't a prude she was outgoing she was Private she was everything did you think you were becoming a role model for older women in this country I realized it when I pulled myself together lost quite a lot of weight started dressing Jessica in a more stylish way that women were beginning to watch what I was wearing and were excited by the fact knowing my age that I had managed to bring this off and you were so successful we were I mean we were totally successful not only that but my agreement with CBS was that I would always be on at eight o'clock on Sunday night by contract actually apparently it was never put into words but and it was never on paper which I can fault some people for but I won't however they did move us and I I was just shocked and I am terribly unhappy and very mad all of those things and with good reason the show fell from a secure top 10 position to finish its last year in 57th place so after 12 Seasons 264 episodes and 286 murders it was over the letters the faxes the wires the the the the outcry was so enormous that I I had to sort of take a piece in the New York Post and write a letter to the public to say to say I think you know I have always held you our audience in the highest regard and believe me I shared your disappointment in the way things turned out even today when you ask her she can barely talk about it thank you it's that hurtful to you I I really didn't know but she has no trouble talking about the early days Angela Lansbury was born in England where her mother an actress encouraged her interest in theater just weeks before the Nazis bombed London her mother managed to get her and her two brothers to Safety in Canada she was alone your father had died and we had really had no money at that point oh the bottom had fallen out of our our income so we were really starting off like immigrants you know in 1942 Angela followed her mother to Hollywood and began auditioning at 17 she got a part in the Ingrid Bergman classic Gaslight but while she got an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress her first time out she would never be offered the leading lady roles she longed for instead she was Elizabeth Taylor's older sister in National Velvet in Blue Hawaii she played Elvis Presley's mother he was 26 she was only 35. he was a young Southern gentleman in those days but he still wiggled his hips handsome she did become one of Hollywood's Great Character actresses in The Manchurian Candidate she was the Diabolical mother who orders her son played by Lawrence Harvey to assassinate a Presidential nominee that part gave her a third Academy Award nomination but as she herself says she always played beastly women never the leading lady I didn't think of myself as being pretty or beautiful certainly not that I was absolutely surrounded at MGM with beautiful little girls all small cute perky delightful somebody somebody once said that I that I had a face like a bread pudding with black widows for eyes I have pictures of you then you were gorgeous if I saw this picture I wouldn't say let's have her be the mean woman in the movie I'd say hey but let's let's look at her to be the glamor girl who gets the guy and gets to kiss him on screen yeah never did never did but but did it bother you uh yes it did it did it wrangled because I was just still young enough to want to be like every like everybody else but it wasn't in the cards so she left Hollywood and moved to Broadway and finally got the part she had longed for as Mame she became Broadway's biggest star she seemed to come out of nowhere a dancer a singer a comedian a Tony Award winner but then a devastating setback when Mame was made into a film in 1974 the role she had created went to Lucille Ball big big disappointment they dashing hopes disappointment I didn't want to work on the film I was so hurt by it oh Jerry Herman wrote the music and lyrics for maim so why didn't she get to do the movie because Hollywood uses what they think is going to be a big box office star whether the person's right for the role or not is not important and so the movie didn't work I think it points up something that I've always felt about the movie community in this town I don't think they've ever to this day really known how to use me I cannot get arrested in the movie business I really cannot I cannot get a job in a movie you didn't you did Beauty and the Beauty and the Beast but that was just my voice the story will continue after this if you stand back and you first look at your career in the movies where you had these great roles but damn they would never give you that Leading Lady part you go to to Broadway and you are the biggest thing on Broadway and they won't give you the movie and then you come into television and you are the biggest thing on television and they take it away from you yeah yeah I mean three times it is curious isn't it I always sort of felt I was sort of a well-kept secret from the people who um sort of held the strings the audience who watched knew they knew but the people who actually held us the strings and provided the money really never knew what they had on their hands you once told TV Guide I used to be champing at the bit because I didn't have control not awful I sound like a controlling woman I often wonder when I read about Hillary and Elizabeth Dole and all these women I say to myself am I one of these controlling women and uh um I'm not but when she was finally a big success on Murder She Wrote she did want to control the show so first she brought in reinforcements she hired her brother her son her stepson and husband for top jobs then after eight seasons she cast herself as executive producer after that TV Guide named her one of the 10 most powerful stars in television she was also named the number one best loved actors have reputations for being uh prima donnas for being difficult for stomping off sets for breaking Furniture those aren't the real actors I've got to tell you right here now not forget that real people who have real talent who have earned their stars do not do those things I'm sorry it is only people who have no self-confidence and no real talent who indulge in that kind of ridiculous Behavior I have no time for it whatsoever it's ridiculous when you consider what these people are being paid I have no patience for them out when Murder She Wrote was canceled she retreated to the Garden behind her home in Los Angeles I also love to grow the odd vegetables so these are tomatoes which after just a few months the untempered metal Angela Lansbury made up with CBs she agreed to make several murders she wrote specials for the network and one more thing this Christmas she will be in a new musical for television Angela Lansbury as Mrs Santa Claus a lot of people would say okay I'm 70. I've done it great career fabulous career it's time to take a little rest not you not even close just curious isn't it I mean I I really feel I have as much energy certainly in the morning uh as I ever have had late afternoon I start to fade a little bit uh one of Jerry's lyrics is wonderful uh um what is it um my bones are often racked up they often act up each time it rains but my arthritis and my phlebitis are simply growing pains and that's the way I feel

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 50,464

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Angela Lansbury, Murder She Wrote

Id: eORuS8G38JU

Length: 11min 31sec (691 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 22 2022