Theater Talk: Angela Lansbury on "Blithe Spirit"

theater talk is made possible in part by the CUNY TV foundation but I have a sudden presentiment that I was going to have a puncture so I went back to pick up my pump and then of course I didn't have a puncture at all from New York City this is theater talk I'm the show's producer Susan Haskins and I'm Michael Riedel of the New York Post when people ask me what must I see on Broadway this season I say you must not miss Angela Lansbury in Blyth spirit and I'm so happy that she's with us tonight welcome Angela Lansbury to theater talk thank you so much yes now it's true everybody is talking about this performance as madame arkady and blaine spirit particularly this extraordinary dance that you do your play to medium in this in this in this famous Noel Coward play and you contact the spiritual world and as you get yourself sort of revved up to talk to the other side you put on I believe it's an early Berlin song always always that's right and then you launch into this extraordinary bit of choreography is that yours yes yes I wish I was given leave to do this by the director Michel like more Mitel Blakemore but also by Noel Coward in his stage direction it says in the very fine print italics she begins to do an aborted dance a little aborted dance nothing those simple words clicked in my naughty brain and I thought ah here's a chance to show how she attracted the spirits what she wanted to do was to create a mood in which the spirits would come and that she would be able to achieve what she set out to do which was to bring about the appearance of a ghost well she wasn't always successful and she was very unsuccessful in fact but nevertheless this was her style of doing of having a sales it's nobody else's but I it's my version of misses of mad immortality for those who don't know the play you're the the town's renowned eccentric and medium well I am yes I come from London I am a new resident in the area and they invite me because mr. Condamine who is the host for the evening has met me on another occasion at some kind of a spiritual gathering and also she said she's a writer she writes children's books yes so she's an extremely interesting and creative and rather whimsical mind to say the least well that whimsical is a great description of this dance now do you change this choreography every night or is have you is this like you know Bob Fosse or Michael Bennett choreography you set it in stone and it's been written down for future production no I I like to feel that I can change it because there is no choreographer it's up to me when I saw you you are almost doing a Chita Rivera leg lift the leg went very high the night I saw you said that and I don't even remember it but I probably couldn't walk the next day did you in your in your travels through show business did you ever meet an old coward I didn't meet him very briefly sadly oh but back in the 70s I would have said I met him at the Plaza Hotel at a wonderful reception in which he and Marlena Dietrich were being feted but other than that I never had the chance any impression he made on you or any not really no he I know that he came to see me in various shows and I wrote in his diary that he had seen me in for instance in dear world and had loved a performance and of course dear world was really kind of akin to a Carty in a way because she was an eccentric and also embodied a lot of the movements which Donnell Sadler gave me for dear world which I have remained in my sort of you know my muscular make out that without those movements were always there so I used them for our county interesting I just always do that you know we always maintain retain all these things somewhere enough the first men of our card I believe was Margaret Rutherford the great great British actress did you see her no I did not and I saw a picture of her I have it in my dressing room in which she's wearing a shirt waist and a long skirt hmm now I I had a whole different take on on a county which was that she had probably been a very brilliant student she probably gone to a women's college in England called Girton in which a lot of these sort of gym teachers and teachers period they were all trained at Girton and that's why she has this very kind of militant way of talking and everything's for the team and all this and that and she came out of it with that but she also had this artistic side to her which allowed her to become this writer of children's books which and romances she wrote kind of romance stories you say which like I mean no no actress has a better entrance that which is driven by the other characters we talked about you have a really terrific director Michael Blakemore who's been a guest on the show a number of times he's a very very analytical very intellectual man what is it that he told you in the cast some fundamental things to understand about this play because we think of Blithe Spirit as a comedy a light comedy and yet when I was watching it the other day this is a seriousness under him I just wondered what Michael told you about this play how to look at this play well I think he just he kind of said this he said this is really a comedy of manners he said we were you are asked as as performers to behave in a way that was normal and natural in the 1940s in that certain class written society which was Britain in in that in that era you had the lower classes lower being the servant class you had the middle class you had the upper middle class and you had the hybrids you know duty you the people who had titles and that sort of thing so he said this this concerns a middle upper middle class family who live in this village and you you behave in such a way that is commensurate with that that class level that you live on and your attitudes are totally different from anything that we we have today all of that has gone from England but but at that time Britain you know this is the way they talk to their servants and etc and the stuff in class didn't expect to ever rise above it because that was what they were born into and they remained except and a singular circumcised yes I do yeah yes except I came from a socialist family yeah labor rights who didn't believe in any other so our you know our the people who worked for us were uh you know we treated them like real people of course we know cowered himself came from rather modest circumstances as well even though he styled himself as a great man of the drawing-rooms of the world in fact he was fundamentally an outsider he succeeded he absolutely did and Michael talked about this and he said so he's writing about something that he really understood very very well how it was you know understood because he didn't come from that group but he admired them tremendously and he wished to be like them and did become like them although he never never lost sight of his beginnings how did you end up in America being an actress I see as such a young woman why did you come to America well because I was fortunate enough to be among a very small group of youngsters really who were transported to America from England to escape from the London bombings and my mother had the opportunity of bringing us and shepherding us and a few other children to the States you know through this organization which arranged it it was rather almost like part of bundles from Britain and of course mr. Roosevelt at that time was doing everything in his power to help Britain without letting Congress not what he was how you know I was just very interesting really did you go and your mother was an actress was my mother be an actress and recognized that I had an innate talent she knew from a very early age that you had I had it both up me and my sister we both did it was there any was any part of putting you on the stage have to do with it you had to make some money when you got here Oh certainly apps yeah but if that was not the prime thing she was perfectly prepared to do that part of it she wanted me to get the training and to have the opportunity to learn as much as other know the nuts and bolts of being a performer before she knew I could do it she just wanted me to have that voice she wanted me to you know have every opportunity to finally make it so she didn't she didn't listen to NOAA cowardice said don't put your daughter on the stage mrs. Worthington's exactly that was one of the songs I used to sing I had a shirt and a hat that I did which was one of the first professional things I ever did was to appear in a cabaret in Montreal and I did a whole act and in it was don't put your daughter on the stage no account never stop writing wonderful material yeah amazing songs would your mother have a slight Mama Rose quality to manual not at all none what if you had said to her I don't want to do this she would have oh she would have back right off but she had nothing to do the only thing she did for me you know a real hands-on thing was she helped me to learn and to deliver the scene from from Romeo and Juliet the balcony scene with Romeo she helped you deliver it she directed you no no no she she helped me she we went through it I learned it and then I would perform it with her and then of course I had to go off and do an audition to get the scholarship to go to the Drama School in London that was the first thing and I was only 14 at the time I was actually in his 13 and but I was a very as they say mature 13 and up here I was mature because my mother had always sort of treated me as a you know on her level which is what and your father had died my father was not yeah and I had sort of had to move in and sort of be huh an adult me on that cut up very young well how soon after did you find yourself at MGM oh well I arrived in 1940 and in four by forty three yeah I was at MGM didn't they kind of like look at you and say oh you have to change your look or sort of think it you well they did but they couldn't pick up me too much in the first place because you know I hate to say this but what you come out with two academicians right not about there they were a little bit hands-off with me right yeah because they they really didn't know what they had and I was kind of an unknown quantity and I know I I was also apparently what they called today a character actress yeah and and they they really didn't have a place for that they had that wonderful actress - oh God names absolutely yes he's gone by me yes Agnes Moorehead Agnes Moorehead and a couple of other women who were very strong in the in the character Department but they were playing kind of dowdy I ended up playing dowdy - would you lay beyond you above your age a lot as well - yes oh and that was because they said character actress type and that's what I was very useful so they used to show me interesting you clearly even as what were you 18 or just doing had substance do you think that's because you'd have gone through all this this of course you're male in life to get there yes and no I think I'm I can't allow really for how I managed to pull those things off I really don't I I just would fill fill the slot as best I could you know and and it was always an acting exercise always an acting exercise but in those days I have to tell you the scripts were very well read really yeah they really were well-written you had wonderful screenwriters you had said to us before we started taking sort of interesting the way Hollywood work back then you were an employee of the studio who ranked I mean nowadays you think an actor achieved some level of fame and power and they get to dictate the terms in this but you were pretty much told this is the job this is what you're gonna do oh absolutely you you you were under contract they paid you every week and they expected you to take any role that was proposed you know and you could fight it and I did on a number of occasions I you know I went to L be mayor and I said mr. mayor why won't you let me play the role of you know madame de winter in ladies in winter i guess he was in in the three musketeers you know instead of playing the Queen of France and he said Angie he said I won't land up to play don't you're gonna be a great Queen so so there I was was it a nerve-wracking experience to a request an audience with the head of MGM you bet it was it really was in those days it was you had to you had to make that appointment we a week ahead you had to get through his three secretaries you had one real lioness of a woman who was his secretary and I can't think of her name now but she was famous and she vetted anybody who came in he had an office in which you had to walk down it's rather like visiting the Queen or somebody because he had a white desk at the end of a long corridor in that which was the office you understand and you had to walk down that and right out to the day to walk up to that big desk again cigars we imagine him sitting there well I don't know that he no I never saw him with cigar oddly enough but in the end we became friends really oh absolutely I used I used to come to dinner at his house we used to play gin rummy and he you know he was a very approachable person really but when it came to business and playing parts he didn't mess around you were the queen of France and the Queen of France I'm fast forwarding your career to your remarkable performance and mentoring and candidate were you in the most evil demented woman I think that's everything it in movies was that just a script that came to you that you no no that came that came about because I had previously been in wonderful movie I I think it was a wonderful movie with Warren Beatty and even resync calm old and called all fall down yes which was directed by John Frankenheimer so working with Frankenheimer for the first time is that playing the mother again and again he and I after a very rocky beginning we didn't get along we got along but I I just didn't come up to his his level of what he was looking for in the role and I finally did so it was difficult for me because I was playing a lot of older again from you know yes so but after we finished we were you know he he came to me and he put the put the book of The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Canton on the table and said Angie this is your next role the mother and I said oh what's this you know and so I went home and read it pronto and it was a huge book but I understood what he meant and it was such an extraordinary and there you were the queen of birth Queen of Spades waiteth heart we have a coin that's diamond queen of diamonds that's right that famous did you see the remake of venture in Canada yes and know everybody acted their heads off and it was great but how can you make them yeah how can you tell a story when you know already know the secret we have the Tony Awards coming up and your great friend Jerry Herman is being given the lights a Lifetime Achievement Award yes Jerry has been on the show a number of times and he has told us the story that I'm curious from your perspective that you were not necessarily the first choice to play maim and if I remember correctly Jerry told me that he secretly rehearsed the songs with you before the audition yes really yes and how did you meet him how did that come well it came about through the producers mm Jimmy Carr and poppy fryer fryer that's right they they were it kind of in favor but they had another set of producer and they were the ones who or they were having trouble persuading that I could bring this off that I could bring in an audience and that I could carry a show and rightly so I don't blame them and I say that I knew I could but I'm what I'm saying is I understood at that point of view but because you are not an established musical theater well waste are not at all the only big music big musical the big flop musical which was Stephens wonderful first outing with a you know music and lyrics which was anyone can whistle right but but it that at least introduced the idea that I you know I could sing and that sang it singing tune and then I knew knew how to get around the stage that's about all as far as being a starter no I hadn't shown that but it certainly shows a glimmer of the beginnings of something possibly there so Jerry had seen that had seen that show and it was on the basis of his seeing that that he decided I was going to be his main man he never never gave up what was the song he taught you he taught me each today and then didn't he sneak in your audition didn't he sneak into the pit and push the piano player aside and play for you yes he did he he just went unto the thing and didn't let on that he was doing it it was to give me moral support was what it was and you know I had to audition an audition an audition for that role I didn't just get it as and they kept changing directors you know and the final director of course was Jean sax it was married to your friend Bea Arthur who Joseph yes miss Bea Arthur's husband at the time and thanks to him who was an unusually kind of off center director that he could see and understand me playing Maine they just can't imagine anyone else playing me you know I didn't see the production but the cast album so vivid you know when you hear it you can't imagine any miles planned and of course the Lucille Ball did to her detriment and the movies I know you were great friends with Bea Arthur and you kindly spoke to me about about her for at least I did that friendship came about because of MAME right in the first place yes but I think it really it's interesting that it became a far more had my more deaths shall we say in in later years after she had done Maude and also while she was doing Golden Girls I was doing Murder She Wrote we realized we were living very close together and it was then that the real that friendship cemented I mean we really were in and out of each other's houses we were constantly trading off ideas recipes you know we go to the movies together we became very close and I valued that friendship more than I can tell you because I really hadn't understood who this woman was when we were doing Maine because when you're doing a big show like that and I was the number one star in it she had wanted to play name really yes and naturally I don't blame her you know I mean actually when you think about it her looks and her attitudes and so on it really would have lent themselves in a very interesting way to me yes but then who could have been very Charles but it was in California where you came and you said something very interesting I thought about her that the image that we had of her publicly as being you know this tough broad with a withering look and a sarcastic cutting remark that was not really Bea Arthur no no it was a I'm not saying that she didn't have a very hard edge when she needed to yes she did bless her and you know III knew that and I you know she'd make me I'd be on the floor with laughter sometimes I think but even but nobody could tell a funny story is that it might be but there was a softness to underneath it Oh bless oh very much so she oh god yes she the most softest person in the world underneath all those layers of toughness you know we have to I'm afraid we're out of time but just ask you one final question um you are an actress of a certain age now mm-hmm I'm curious to know when you've come back to Broadway after well you did deuce a couple of years ago and now madame arkady you were away from the stage for fair amount of time at your age what is the thing you are most confident in doing on stage what is the easiest thing to do and what is the the biggest challenge what is the easiest thing well for me acting is easy playing comedy is not easy it's difficult but because I enjoy doing it it's it's wonderfully you know the feedback is tremendous no and your instincts for you know how to get a laugh you know movement in the hand of the eye you just know your your your techniques - yes get the elect she's got to exercise your technique as an actress as a comedian then we haven't talked about that but I really am actually a comedian and comedians are often very good at playing tragedy all kinds of things so in other words this is just this link between comedy and tragedy is right there and it really works and both work I enjoy doing both right but I love doing comedy and so coming back at my age to play comedy is probably the most comfortable thing I can do and what's the difficult thing though at if you haven't been aware if you've been away from the stage for so long just keeping up the the physical energy which is required to send it across the footlights I mean this is what I work towards and I take excruciating care of my body and like what I eat and how I conduct and you know live my life yeah while I'm on stage you know I really do and that's the thing I depend on to hold me up there and give me that thrust which gets it across the footlights because when you are of a certain age you know you don't have that extraordinary kind of a balance that you do in youth and you have to pretend that you do don't miss Angela Lansbury as madam or Cathy doing unforgettable dance an interpretive spiritual dance in blye spirit at the Shubert theater Angela Lansbury thanks a lot for being our guys it's been such fun thank you for having me if that your tongue is vicious if I call you on when did you discover these extraordinary powers that you had them well my name is quite time you see my mother was a medium before me so I had the opportunity of starting on the ground floor

Channel: CUNY TV

Views: 68,935

Rating: 4.8879309 out of 5

Keywords: Angela Lansbury, Blithe Spirit, CUNY TV, Theater Talk, Susan Haskins, Michael Riedel

Id: jQ6IyCFo7i0

Length: 25min 16sec (1516 seconds)

Published: Fri May 13 2011