Angela Lansbury - a podcast by Adriaan Fuchs

Unlike most other Broadway Babies, it is said that five-time Tony Award winner Angela Lansbury initially had no dreams of the musical theater and didn’t especially aspire to it. Her career began in film, and she appeared in more than 40 movies (including “Gaslight”, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “The Manchurian Candidate”) before making it to Broadway in 1957 with the play, “Hotel Paradiso”. But it wasn’t until 1964 that she had the opportunity to do her first musical. That show, “Anyone can Whistle”, was one of Broadway’s most legendary flops, lasting only nine performances, but it did give Lansbury the confidence to pursue a career as a musical performer, and it introduced her to Stephen Sondheim, a composer with whom she would go on to do a further three shows and of whose work she would become a noted interpreter.



It was the musical theater that allowed Angela Lansbury’s star to shine brightest: with her daffy comic skills and brassy pipes, she originated such landmark roles as Mame Dennis in Jerry Herman’s “Mame”, and Mrs. Nellie Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”, in addition to her star turns in “Gypsy” and “The King and I”. And then of course she also won the hearts of millions through her portrayal of mystery novelist and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the hit television series “Murder, She Wrote”.



Admired by her peers and beloved by her fans, both young and old, Lansbury is, without a doubt one of stage and screen's most treasured stars. In this special On And Off The Record podcast, part of the Great Interpreters Goes Broadway! series, we examine the life and career of the remarkable Angela Lansbury.

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Website of Adriaan Fuchs