Bed Knobs and Broomsticks – Mikebob's World

Remembering Angela

I haven’t written in several weeks. Pain kept me away, and Pain has brought me back. Angela Lansbury passed away on October 11, 2022. Just a few days ago and just a few days before celebrating her 97^th birthday on October 16. I have already done a blog on her life, so I will refer you back to that. I want to make this a memorial of sorts.

When I think of Angela’s death or hear on my Amazon Echo device speak of it, the tears come. I’m trying to figure out why. How did a woman who wouldn’t know me from Adam get deeply embedded in my heart? I know it’s not only me; NASA dedicated a Cosmic Rose in her honor. I’ve seen pictures of this rose, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. One had to wonder why? NASA does not often align itself with the entertainment industry. They use Snoopy as a mascot from time to time, but that’s about it. Angela Lansbury and Snoopy seem an odd combination. But NASA knew that everyone loves Snoopy, and I guess they came to realize that everyone loves Angela Lansbury too.

In my family Miss Lansbury delighted at least five generations, possibly six. My great-grandparents immigrated to this country early in the 20^th century. I don’t know much about them as they died when I was very young. I don’t know if they went to the movies or even watched TV. If they did, they might have enjoyed Miss Lansbury in her film work, the opportunity was there, but I don’t know. My grandmother did love Murder She Wrote, as did my parents and I. My nieces and nephews grew up on Beauty and the Beast, and they are showing that movie to their children along with Bed knobs and Broomsticks. That tallies to a definite five generations.

In my previous blog, I concentrated on the films Miss Lansbury was in, not the roles she played. Today, I want to talk about her characters. I first met Angela on the screen in 1971. I was ten, and Angela played the role of Eglantine Price in the Disney feature film Musical Bed Knobs and Broomsticks. Eglantine was a spinster determined to become a witch to help England win the 2^nd World War. Her studies get interrupted when three children from London come to stay with her to escape war-torn London. This is where the fun in the film begins.

Eglantine Price was a great role for Angela. In an interview, she stated that she enjoyed playing the part and the process of creating the character. In her first appearance, Eglantine seems stern and unapproachable; as the movie progresses, you learn that she is warm, caring, and not afraid to take on a challenge. These were great lessons for a ten-year-old. I loved this movie and so did my friends who went with me to see it.

Mame Dennis. Five years earlier, Miss Lansbury landed the role of Mame Dennis in the musical version of Auntie Mame. In the 50s, no one could have touched Rosalind Russell’s portrayal of the aunt every child would love to have. In 1966 however, Lansbury made that role her own, and with the words and music of Jerry Herman, she made a mark on Broadway that would, in some ways, compel the rest of her career. She went from being a second banana to being a true star in every way possible.

Mame would be considered a person who thought outside of the box in every conceivable situation. Her solution to problems was to get involved in outlandish schemes that would both court disaster and triumph. But all through the character is the essence of life is meant to be lived. “Live, live, live, life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.” This was her motto for life rain or shine.

Angela made the character her own and played her differently than Rosalind Russell of course, I can only tell this from the songs, but I think Angela was a bit more of a gentle Mame. Russell tore thru like a tornado, whereas Angela gracefully swept through, winning people to her side as she went.

Salome Autobahn was a supporting character in the first of the three filmed versions of Agatha Christie’s Death On The Nile. The star of the film was Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poitot, the great Belguin detective. Some of the rest of the supporting cast boasted Bette Davis and Maggie Smith, so Angela was in good company. Salome Autobahn is a drunk author who is a suspect in the murder. Angela is a delight as she romps through this movie, outshining all the other cast members through her crazy antics. Basically, Angela gets all the laughs in this film. It’s not a comedy, but the light-hearted moments made up for the gruesome tale. This movie was made in 1978 right on the tail of Murder on the Orient Express, another Christie book, but this was not the end of Angela and Miss Christie.

In 1980 Miss Lansbury took the lead role as Miss Marple Agatha Christie’s other leading detective. Lansbury was 55 when she made this film. Miss Marple is an elderly spinster with a mind like a steel trap. Nothing gets past this old lady, and Lansbury plays her well, undoubtedly setting the stage for what was to come to her in four short years.

In 1979 Lansbury again made a hit on Broadway as Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Playing opposite Len Cariou as Sweeney, Angela was a delight as the pie shop lady that baked Sweeney’s murdered corpses into meat pies. The show found a way to make an otherwise appalling legend humorous and a little fun. Everyone, in the end, gets their just desserts, pun intended, and Angela walked away with that year’s Tony Award for best actress in a musical.

On October 7, 1984, Angela began her twelve-year run on Murder, She Wrote. The weekly murder mystery series starred Angela as Jessica Fletcher, a retired school teacher from Cabot Cove, Maine, who globe trotted her way into a different murder every week. When she wasn’t in some distant place solving a murder, one would pop up in Cabot Cove. Between Jessica Fletcher and Stephen King, Maine is not the safest place to live. Angela was nominated every year the show was on for an Emmy award, and the sad truth is she never took one home. It makes you wonder if the award shows aare more about politics than talent?

On November 22, 1991, Angela would again make a stamp on childhood. This time a symbol that, I believe, at least for the next several generations, will never go away. Much like adults in the past love to share Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz with their children. Parents now share the magic of the animated film Beauty and the Beast with Angela Lansbury as the lovable Teapot Mrs. Potts singing the title song. And like Judy’s unforgettable rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Angela’s singing of Beauty and the Beast brings to hearts sheer beauty and hope to the soul.

There is so much more to say about Angela Lansbury’s brilliant career. I didn’t touch on the villains she played; she played more than a few brilliantly; for proof of this, watch the 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate. Honorary mention must go to her portrayal of Ada Harris in the original film version of Mrs’ arris Goes to Paris, Penelope Keeling in The Shell Seekers, Aunt March is the BBC/PBS version of Little Women and her wonderful cameo appearance as The Balloon Lady in Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns.

I want to talk about one more role of Angela’s before I end this memorial. In 1996 Angela would again team with Jerry Herman, who wrote the music and lyrics to Mame to bring to life and finally give center stage to one of legend’s most unrecognized characters Mrs. Santa Claus. I loved and still love this musical that takes place in turn of the century New York City where Mrs. Santa Claus finds herself stranded just a few days before Christmas. In 90 or so minutes, she reunites families, makes a stand for women’s suffrage, and thwarts the plot of a nefarious toy manufacturer. All the while singing some of the best songs ever. My favorite is Almost Young, an anthem for always staying young at heart.

My bones are often racked up,

They often act up each time it rains.

But arthritis and fleabites are simple growing pains.

So let them say I’m past my peak,

That I’m a million years from hide and seek,

But when my dirge is sung,

I’ll still be struttin and kickin,

Like some little chicken,

And tough as a riddle,

And fit as a fiddle

And almost young.

Last night October 16, 2022, the lights dimmed on Broadway for Angela Lansbury. The lights went dark on NYC’s most prominent street, and an image of Angela shown for a few seconds. Now it’s time for us to say goodnight too.

“Back to the cupboard with you now chip.”

“It’s past your bedtime.”

“G’nite Love”

Angela Lansbury started her career in 1944 in the film Gaslight. She played a conniving maid who was helping to make Ingrid Bergman’s character think she was insane. She would go on to play many other roles at MGM in many important and memorable films such as The Harvey Girls, Blue Hawaii and The Manchurian Candidate. Though relatively young she was often cast as the mother of an adult child and never the star of the movie always the back up. At least in the films she is most well known for.

I came to know of Angela Lansbury in 1971 when Disney released its now classic film Bed knobs and Broomsticks. The film was a musical adaptation of the book with the same title written by Mary Norton. The title was slightly altered by Disney. The book is called Bed knob and Broomstick which is more accurate as there is only one of each in the book.

The score and the songs for the film were written by Richard and Robert Sherman the same two men who gave us the music for Mary Poppins.

The story centered around an apprentice witch, Miss Price, played by Lansbury, who is coming to the end of her mail in course on witchcraft. At the same time she is forced to take in three war refugees from London. The film is set during WWII. They find out she’s a witch and threaten to expose her unless she gives them something magical. She enchants a bed knob which will enable the bed to take the children anywhere they wish to go. At about this time Miss Price receives a letter from her instructor telling her that the school of witchcraft is closed. Miss Price needs the next spell in the course, as she believes she can help the war effort with it. She asks the children to allow the bed to take them all to London so she can get the spell she needs, and the adventures begin.

I was ten when this film came out and it was a delight. My imagination understood more about good witches than bad witches. I had grown up on Glinda from The Wizard of Oz and Samantha from Bewitched. I could easily understand a witch wanting to help with the war effort. I was also reading comic books at the time and Dr Strange from Marvel and Dr Fate from DC were both powerful sorcerers. I reveled in the magic of Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, so much so that as soon as I got home, I tried out the spell that Miss Price used to bring inanimate things to life. Much to my disappointment the spell did not work.

With in a few years of this, in the bargain bins at the Bazaar Record Shop I found the soundtrack for the musical Mame starring Lucille Ball. Now I loved Lucy. Still do, and though I knew nothing about the movie I bought the album and brought it home. I loved the music and I loved hearing Lucy sing. I had no idea of the story, that would come later, but I loved that album and wore it out. Soon I was able to find a copy of the book the movie was based on Auntie Mame. I had to special order it. It may have been a best seller in the 50s but by 1977 it wasn’t sought after much. I gobbled that down and then bought the original Broadway cast Album of Mame and Angela Lansbury was back in my life.

Angela opened in Mame in 1966 at The Winter Garden Theater in New York City. She electrified crowds with her performance of Mame Dennis and brought the house down. Miss Lansbury stayed with the Broadway production for 1500 performances and would head up two national touring companies. In the 1980s she would bring the show back to Broadway for its first revival.

I love Lucy and I love Angela, but the truth needs to be written here. As much as I love Lucy and was enchanted by the album of Mame because it was her. She had no business playing that part, Lucille Ball was 62 when she played Mame. To make her look younger they used filtered lenses on the cameras. Mame could be played by a fifty something woman believably but not by a 62-year-old woman who was in fact showing her age.

Angela Lansbury should have taken the role to the big screen. She had over 20 years of movie credits to her name when she opened Mame on Broadway. People knew who she was and would have gone to see her. The problem was Lucille. Miss Ball bought the rights for the movie for herself and had every intension of playing the role on her own. She basically stole that from Lansbury and the resulting film, though not totally horrible was mediocre at best. When VCRs and VHS tapes became popular Mame was the first one I bought and though I love Lucy the film proved to be a disappointment.

Miss Lansbury was not in any way finished with her career. Her next big stop would be, as far as I was concerned, as Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. She would engross audiences in song while she baked dead human bodies into pies. Miss Lansbury would receive her 4^th Tony Award for her portrayal of Mrs. Lovett. The other three were for Mame, Dear World and the Revival of Gypsy.

After taking on the big screen and Broadway it was in 1984 that Miss Lansbury would conquer the small screen in the role of Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote. It was at this time that Angela Lansbury’s career became a main interest to me. I was able to watch her in all of her movie roles including Blue Hawaii which starred Elvis Presley. Never being a Presley fan this one was hard for me. I watched Murder; She Wrote every week. It was one of the few shows my parents and I agreed on.

Murder, She Wrote became an important show for many reasons. I think the first is that it settled around older adults. The over 50 population had few shows they could relate to on TV. Angela’s character of Jessica Fletcher was the first in a line of shows that spotlighted older adults as stars. The Golden Girls would follow in 1985, Matlock with Andy Griffith in 1986 and Diagnosis Murder with Dick Van Dyke in 1993. Angela paved the way for all of these shows to become hits. All though Murder, She Wrote would go off the air in 1996 after 12 season Angela would reprise the role of Jessica Fletcher for four made for TV movies.

In 1991 Angela would come back to big screen but this time as an animated teapot in Disney’s animated classic Beauty and the Beast. Miss Lansbury would sing the title song and generation of children would grow to love her character as the motherly Mrs. Potts.

Angela kept going. So many wonderful projects would follow. The Shell Seekers for The Hallmark Hall of Fame. Mrs. ‘arris Goes To Paris where she plays a char woman who dreams of owning a designer gown and sees her dream come true. And Mrs. Santa Claus where she plays the wife of the great man himself in a musical with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman the man who wrote Mame.

She would go back to the theater and win awards for her supporting role in A Little Night Music and Blythe Spirit. In her 90s Miss Lansbury toured Australia with James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy. She would come back to the United States to play Aunt March in The BBC/PBS adaptation of Little Women and then play the small role of The Balloon Lady in Mary Poppins Returns.

I don’t know where Miss Lansbury will turn up next. I do know that she has inspired me for years. Her songs that are so heart felt have comforted me as she sings Beauty and the Beast or inspired me as she sings Open a New Window or It’s Today both from Mame.

Rosalind Russell played Mame first on stage in the n the non-musical version Auntie Mame. She was the first to emphasize this life philosophy. “LIVE LIVE LIVE, life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.” But Angela would repeat that same philosophy over and over and then go on to live it. She has proven that life is a banquet if we choose to see that way. She has proven that at any age you can meet any challenge and still come out the victor. She has proven that every day is a gift and to squander that gift is perhaps the greatest of sins.

I’m grateful for the talent of Angela Lansbury and I hope you are too. I hope that her films and recordings will fill you with the same joy they fill me with. And though in her 90s I hope that we will still see her grace our screens large and small.