What roles Angela Lansbury could still play on stage?

I’ve read an interview where Ms. Lansbury said that she would’ve love to do a straight play, something challenging like Red and that she still could play women in their 60’s.

There is no question that it’s a great honor and blessing for all of us that Ms. Lansbury is still willing and able to perform 8 times a week and by any standards her Madame Arcati and Madame Armfeldt were great achievements, but her role of Mrs. Gamadge in The Best Man is rather small and doesn’t sound that challenging to be honest.

Is it because she’s simply not getting better offers or it’s just that at her age she prefers to be a part of a large ensemble and not to carry the show on her own and anything else would be too much to ask?
I don’t know if it’s true, but apparently she turned the part of Mother Superior that eventually went to a 50 years-old Victoria Clark.

Personally I would love to see Lansbury in something like August: Osage County or Other Desert Cities.

She was my first choice for the movie too henrik.

Maybe she can play Gavroche in the movie version of Les Miserables.

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Lady Bracknell.

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Is she too old to play Jack's Mother in the Into the Woods film? She'd be fantastic, but I'm afraid she'd look more like his grandmother.

Yes, she did, in the 1997 animated film.

Claire Zachanassian in The Visit

In the animated movie version yes. As for what some have been saying about dames, judi and maggie. You have to rember in england the theater is very revered, much more so than america were Lansbury did a majority of her stage work. They also continued to make movies while they doing theater. (At least for Maggie.) Judi also did a lot of stage work but she also made sure to appear in films every now and again, as she's aged she's had the ability and good fortune to go into films. Lansbury largely left films in the 60's for theater, and went into television in the eighties and 90's. Tv has a very demanding schedule for filming, so she had less time for movies or the stage. Shortly after murder she wrote her husband became ill and Angela sacrificed some wonderful roles to help him through his illness till his death. As for film career she never had a film where she was really the lead role, she had good supporting roles. When the aforementioned ladies had roles, most of them were leads or got big leading roles in at least one project. All Lansbury can claim as a well known showcase movie is the manchurian canidate, those ladies can claim even some recent films and in some cases there just younger and are easier to insure.

Updated On: 2/18/12 at 02:55 PM

"All Lansbury can claim as a well known showcase movie is the manchurian canidate, those ladies can claim even some recent films and in some cases there just younger and are easier to insure."

Now wait a minute.

First, her performance in The Manchurian Candidate is often cited as one of the greatest performances ever given on film.

And then consider what else she did in the movies: Gaslight (an oscar nomination at age 18 in a grade A classic), National Velvet (Elizabeth Taylor's sister in another grade A classic), Dorian Gray (she breaks your heart and shows she can play a truly nice young woman with the best of them), The Harvey Girls (bitch rival to Judy Garland), State of the Union (bitch rival to Katharine Hepburn), Bel Ami (something of a cult classic), Death on the Nile (hilariously camp, arguably stealing the movie from a cast of giants, including Maggie Smith and Bette Davis!), and The Mirror Cracked (leading another all star case including Taylor, Novak and Hudson) are all showcase roles in famous movies, although some are very old movies.

All that and a starring role in Bedknobs and Broomsticks which Disney gave her after considering Leslie Caron, Julie Andrews and Lynn Redgrave. It may not have been a huge box office hit, but it did make more money than Mame, and is a hell of a lot better (small praise, it goes without saying).

What is interesting about Lansbury is that she was a well known movie personality with a long Hollywood career before she became a stage icon, but her stage stardom eclipsed her movie fame. The exact opposite of Judi Dench, especially from a U.S. point of view.

Moreover, Lansbury is so well known to American audiences from major television success, that one would think she would have had gotten her last great movie role. Well, we can only hope it might still come to be.

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Charles, I didn't know Lansbury had already played Claire, but didn't Durenmatt fashion The Visit so that Claire could be played by a woman somewhere between 40 and death?

Updated On: 2/18/12 at 05:05 PM

Gaveston, there seems to be this ongoing battle over what is age appropriate for Violet Weston. Without rehashing all that out, I'm of the opinion that the older she is the better.

Fairy Godmother in Cinderella

Actually, watching the movie of KIND LADY with Ethel Barrymore gave me the idea. I think Angela Lansbury could pull off a lot of the movie roles Miss Barrymore did in her later years. I think the old movie of NIGHT MUST FALL (Robert Mongomery and Dame May Whitty) has held up quite well and merits a revival as much as many of the older plays that have been revived recently. The Montgomery role would be a good one for any number of name actors. Lansbury did a fine job in the Whitty role in a mediocre remake of THE LADY VANISHES in the seventies, if that means anything.

When i say showcase henrik i mean THE lead female role. Also the mirror was a tv movie. I will admit i had forgotten Dorian Gray, but most of those are supporting roles. She wasn't a leading lady is abot it boils down to, the women who are getting the roles now are the former leading ladies of in some ways both the stage and film.

EDIT: You also have to remember that Lansburies agent for most of her life was her husband Peter Shaw, she took off some major time to care for him. A time where she could have had the reassurgence of popularity like Dench, Redgrave, and Smith as that's when there resurgence was occurring. That and a sick agent isn't going to be able to do his best work for you.

Updated On: 2/18/12 at 07:36 PM