Save a lot of graves, do a lot of relatives favours

[sovay]

spatch just called to tell me one thing which he thought I would enjoy and one thing which he knew I would not.

The enjoyable thing is that Madonna seems to have come out; I just thought that had happened ages ago.

The unenjoyable thing is that Angela Lansbury has died. Like the Queen and the light of certain stars, she was expected to go on forever.

Because she was so superbly ubiquitous on stage and screen, it took me some time to place my earliest exposure to her. The likeliest candidate is The Court Jester (1955), after which the next best contender is a three-way toss-up between National Velvet (1944), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), and the original cast recording of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1978). For better or worse, whether she appeared to me thereafter as Sibyl Vane, Eleanor Iselin, or Mrs. Potts, Mrs. Lovett left the strongest impression, a monster of cheerful and ingenious pragmatism with one terrible schoolgirlish spot for a man who hasn't existed for fifteen years—always had a fondness for you, I did, as tragically delusional in her own businesslike way as the man she daydreams will retire to the seaside from his Jacobean revenge. When she was younger, she had the linnet-voice of Johanna. I have been listening to her with Len Cariou, with Bea Arthur, with the audience of her imagination as Momma Rose. I have named a fraction of her history as a performer. She got to be a grande dame and a gay icon and even Madame Arcati, in the theater where her own mother had made her stage debut nearly a century before. I was glad of her in the world in her own form as well as the ones she acted. In her memory, I am still going to go eat a slice of meat pie.

Comments

[oracne]

She was a Titan.

[minoanmiss]

I cannot think of a better tribute than a meat pie. *raises my glass*

[davidgillon]

a three-way toss-up between National Velvet (1944), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), and the original cast recording of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1978).

I'm fairly sure Bedknobs and Broomsticks was mine. I'm not sure if I saw it on its original cinema release, but it would have been very shortly afterwards if it wasn't.

[desireearmfeldt]

It weirded me out when I saw The Court Jester and discovered that was her. (Having been introduced to her probably via Sweeney Todd but in any case as middle aged.)

[troisoiseaux]

The unenjoyable thing is that Angela Lansbury has died.

:(

[skygiants]

Bedknobs and Broomsticks was definitely mine, and I was always so delighted any time I accidentally stumbled over her earlier work by surprise -- I nearly fell out of my chair when she turned up as a baby in Gaslight.

[alexxkay]

Her performance in The Manchurian Candidate was iconic.

Not necessarily in a good way. I remain convinced that a generation of young Republicans saw their worst fears crystallized in that character, and that much of their vitriol towards Hilary Clinton stems from that source.

[rachelmanija]

I used to watch Murder She Wrote every week with my grandparents, and was quite surprised when I discovered Sweeney Todd in college.

[julian]

Other than Murder, She Wrote, my first exposure to her as a person who could act was, really, _The Manchurian Candidate_, which I saw at 25 and it slammed into me like a freight train.

Also: Madonna wasn't out? What?

[thawrecka]

It had not occurred to me that Madonna might be in any closets, but also people talking about the tiktok video where she may or may not have come out aren't entirely sure what she meant, apparently! Anyway, I can't say I ever assumed she was straight.

[gwynnega]

I'm pretty sure I first saw her in Bedknobs and Broomsticks. After that, probably The Manchurian Candidate and The World of Henry Orient. Oddly enough, I didn't see any of Murder She Wrote until a few years ago, when I ended up watching many episodes on cable.

[mrissa]

I honestly came here to read the comments because I thought I must be missing something, that Madonna must have come out as nonbinary or genderqueer or something because...like...what. we were there. she told us already. I mean, good for her using the out-loud words, but...every analogy I'm coming up with is in fact LESS obvious than this.

[selkie]

So, a thing that tells us something about how my brain archives visual media, for good or ill:
Dame Angela was Sybil Vane in a so-old-I've- seen -it version of Dorian Gray, and she sang a music-hall-esque song, "Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird," which basically sledgehammered you with the plot.
Long decades later, she sang "Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird" as Jessica Fletcher's "cousin" on an ep of Murder, She Wrote, on a music hall stage and all, and she must have been cackling her ass off the whole time.

Edit: Puts the duh in Madonna, if you ask me.

[ashlyme]

The more I think of Angela Lansbury, the more I realise she was in countless things I watched as a kid. She really did seem immortal.

How was the meat pie?