Remembering Angela Lansbury – Her Best Moments on YouTube

There was a moment at the end of Angela Lansbury's performance in "Gypsy" that has stayed in the memory for decades. It comes at the very end when after Rose reconciled with her daughter Gypsy. Draped in a mink coat, Lansbury headed off stage-left, only to pause and look out at the house with a look of disbelief. Was Rose finally defeated? It seemed so. It capped an already dynamic performance with a poignant endnote.

Anyone who had the privilege of seeing Lansbury in her many stage roles likely has their favorite memory. Or a favorite film and (of course) television role – Lansbury, who died on Tuesday at the age of 96 just five days short of her 97th birthday, made some 40-odd films and, most famously, became one of the world's most recognizable actresses from playing Jessica Fletcher on twelve seasons of "Murder She Wrote." 

She escaped the London blitz to settle in Hollywood with her mother in the early 1940s where she pursued a career as an actress. Signed by MGM, she was cast by George Cukor to play a Cockney maid in the thriller "Gaslight," and received her first Oscar nomination at the age of 22. The following year she received her second for playing a doomed cabaret singer in "The Picture of Dorian Gray." But Hollywood didn't know what to do with her. "I wasn't very good at being a starlet," she said. "I didn't want to pose for cheesecake photos and that kind of thing," she later said, and she left MGM in 1951 to freelance. What she found were roles where she was either a brittle comedienne ("The Reluctant Debutante") or Elvis's mother ("Blue Hawaii"). In 1962 she was cast as Laurence Harvey's mother in "The Manchurian Candidate," though only three years older than he was. Her chilling performance brought her a third Oscar nomination.

About this time, she was cast in a Broadway musical – "Anyone Can Whistle" –- in which she played a corrupt mayoress who concocts a phony miracle to save her town from ruin. It ran 8 performances, but introduced Lansbury to Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the score, and Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book and directed. Three years later she was back on Broadway, this time in the hit "Mame," based on Patrick Dennis's novel and the hit film. When she sang "Bosom Buddies"with Beatrice Arthur, her place as a gay icon was assured. She later said that the reason why gay men identified with Mame Dennis was that she was "every gay person's idea of glamour ... Everything about Mame coincided with every young man's idea of beauty and glory and it was lovely." She won her first Tony for the role. 

She won her second Tony in 1969 in "Dear World," a failed adaptation of Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot." It was not a happy experience. Domestic issues led her to relocate to Ireland with her family in the 1970s. She returned to Broadway for a revival of "Gypsy," directed by Laurents in 1974 after a successful London run. She won a third Tony. In 1979 she starred as the enterprising baker Mrs. Lovett in Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" opposite Len Cariou, and won her fourth Tony. A return to Hollywood led to "Murder She Wrote," which she starred in for twelve seasons, receiving a record 12 Emmy nominations, but no win. In 1991 she took the role Mrs. Potts, the singing teapot, in the Disney animated musical "Beauty and the Beast," and her lovely rendition of the title song has endeared her to generations of children. 

In her 70s and 80s she returned to Broadway, winning her fifth Tony Award for her Madame Arcati in a revival of "Blithe Spirit" in 2009. Only Audra McDonald and Julie Harris have won more. The following year she would receive her seventh Tony nomination. Lansbury, though, still had London to conquer. In 2014 she brought "Blithe Spirit" to London and won her first Olivier Award.

Lansbury's death was announced by her children, who said she died in her sleep. 

Here's a look at some of Lansbury's most memorable moments on YouTube.

"Little Yellow Bird" from "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945)

In "The Picture of Dorian Gray" Lansbury plays Sybil Vane, the tragic Cockney cabaret performer who is first seen singing "Little Yellow Bird" in a pub. In her essay "Trash, Art and the Movies," critic Pauline Kael writes: "There are great moments–Angela Lansbury singing "Little Yellow Bird" in "Dorian Gray." ("I don't think I've ever had a friend who didn't also treasure that girl and that song.")

"Oh You Kid" from "The Harvey Girls"

Despite her early success, Lansbury was consigned to supporting roles during her MGM years, which ended in 1951. In this hit Western musical, she played the hostess of a dance hall who is in a romantic triangle with John Hodiak and star Judy Garland. It is not surprising that Lansbury is sent out of town in the final reel.

"Bosom Buddies" from "Mame"

In 1966, after a decade of playing the mothers of actors close to her own age (Elvis, Laurence Harvey), Lansbury pursued the role of Mame Dennis the musical version of "Auntie Mame," shortened to just "Mame." "I want all the glamour there is," Lansbury told Life magazine at the time. "I've been starving for it." Both she and Beatrice Arthur, who plays her best chum Vera Charles, won Tony Awards. If only for performing a number that has long been a gay favorite.

"Gypsy" – production reel/1974 revival

Lansbury first played Rose, the pushy stage mother in this Arthur Laurents/Stephen Sondheim musical, in London in 1973. It transferred to the United States for a tour that finished on Broadway, where she won her third Tony Award. This press reel was shot early in the production at the Winter Garden Theatre, perhaps during previews.

"Worst Pies in London" from "Sweeney Todd" (1979)

One of the great comic performances of all time came when Lansbury played Mrs. Lovett, the enterprising baker who forms a prosperous partnership with a homicidal barber. Her establishing song is a tongue-twister that demands much physical comedy, which Lansbury performs hilariously. She won her fourth Tony Award.

"Not While I'm Around" from "Sweeney Todd" (2002)

In this Christmas concert with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from 2002, Lansbury puts this uplifting ballad from "Sweeney Todd" in the context of reassuring children after 9/11. "I think this great song by the great Stephen Sondheim that I sang in 'Sweeney Todd' says it all."

"Liaisons" from "A Little Night Music" at the Olivier Awards 2011.

When Stephen Sondheim received an Olivier Award in 2011, Lansbury was on hand to sing "Liaisons," the romantic musings of the elderly Countess that she had recently performed in the Broadway revival with Catherine Zeta-Jones. She received her seventh Tony Award nomination for the performance. 

"Beauty and the Beast" from "Beauty and the Beast" (1991)

Lansbury's performance as Mrs. Potts in the Disney animated musical "Beauty and the Beast" endeared her singing to generations of children. At the age of 90 she was accompanied by composer Alan Menken to sing the song at the 25th Anniversary screening at the Lincoln Center in New York City. She was 90.