061 Dame Detective transcript (Angela Lansbury)

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[00:00:00] Amit: This is Famous Gravy, life lessons from dead celebrities. Now for the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

[00:00:08] Michael: This person died in 2022, age 96. She once said, quote, I wasn't very good at being a starlet. I didn't want to pose for cheesecake photos and that kind of thing.

[00:00:21] Friend: Already did Betty White. Uh, Delia Cruz?

[00:00:26] Michael: No. All right. In the mid 1950s, she found herself. cast as either of two types, as she put it, quote, bitches on wheels and people's mothers, end quote.

[00:00:41] Friend: Madeline Albright?

[00:00:42] Michael: Not Madeline Albright. Uh, sorry. Just gotta sit with that for a second. Her full round face was not well suited for the dramatic lighting of the time, which favored the more angular looks of starlets like Lauren Bacall. And Katherine Hepburn.

[00:01:02] Friend: Round face. I am stuck.

[00:01:05] Michael: She was nominated for a Tony Award at age 83, a testament to her extraordinary stamina. Hmm. She captured the biggest audience of her career in 1984 when she was cast as the mystery writer and amateur sleuth. Jessica Fletcher on the c b s series.

[00:01:24] Friend: Is it, um, Angela Lansbury?

[00:01:28] Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Angela Lansbury. Oh my god!

[00:01:33] Friend: Oh, that was too much.

[00:01:36] Angela: Some of the greatest triumph songs in the theater were accompanied by the most horrendous personal things going on behind the scenes. This mask we put on when we go out there is a mask. We put on this air of being happy and carefree and gay and of course we have this other river of emotion that is running through our lives all the time which has to do with our families, our children, our husbands, their health.

[00:02:05] to deal with the success of being the person who's up there

[00:02:09] all the time.

[00:02:15] Michael: Welcome to Famous Gravy, I'm Michael Osborne.

[00:02:17] Amit: And my name is Amit Kapoor. Michael and I are looking for ways to make life better.

[00:02:22] Michael: And we believe that the best years might lie ahead, so on this show we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years. And we go through a series of categories reviewing their lives to extract wisdom and inspiration.

[00:02:35] At the end, we answer the question, would I want that life? Today, Angela Lansbury died 2022, age 96. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Angela Lansbury. A formidable actress who captivated Hollywood in her youth, became a Broadway musical sensation in middle age, and then drew millions of fans as a widowed mystery writer on the long running television series Murder, She Wrote, died on Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles.

[00:03:10] She was 96.

[00:03:12] Amit: I like it. Yeah, I do too. If I would have read that first line when she died, that would have been my entire education of Angela Lansbury pre Murder, She Wrote. Yes. I knew none of this stuff.

[00:03:22] Michael: So, are you talking about what did you know her for? Yes. I mean, Murder, She Wrote, I think, is the standout,

[00:03:27] Amit: obviously.

[00:03:27] That was, but it was also her capstone to, like, an

[00:03:30] Michael: incredible career. And what you're saying is you didn't realize that that was a capstone, that there was a lot more to her career? Yes. I agree. I mean, I had two other associations that I... didn't take long for me to be reminded of. One was Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

[00:03:43] The other one being Manchurian Candidate. I very much remembered Angela Lansbury from the

[00:03:47] Amit: original. That's so funny because I watched it and I had no idea it was her. All right,

[00:03:50] Michael: so let's actually get back to the obituary here for a second. I was thinking about this because there's a word in here I really want to talk about.

[00:03:57] Amit: Formidable. Yes, that's the first, that's what I wrote

[00:04:00] Michael: down. It is kind of the... Big word that they use here and I have really mixed feelings. I've gone back and forth on this word Okay, the first time I saw it I'd felt a little bit almost insulting to me Like it's something where you're trying to say something nice and like that person is formidable But it's almost passive aggressive to me.

[00:04:25] It's

[00:04:25] Amit: villainous also, right? In a certain way. I mean, it's, it's impressive, but also fear inducing.

[00:04:31] Michael: To me, I was actually thinking it's almost like pandering or something. That's how I hear it. I hear formidable as, um, as one of those words that's meant to be kind of a big word and isn't. Like, it understates it.

[00:04:44] So, first of all, I was like, is that even true? Is she a formidable actress? Then as I get into the research, Absolutely, she is a formidable actress. Yes. Now I kind of want a better word. I think it's an accurate word, but I do think that there is a combination of personality qualities that I don't know if it all adds up to the word formidable for me.

[00:05:04] I would have spent another ten minutes on the thesaurus. before writing this in the first line of the obituary. It's not totally wrong, it's just, I don't love it. Okay. And then everything else

[00:05:14] Amit: is about the story. Yeah, they also use sensational, and they kind of divided her life into three chunks, right?

[00:05:20] Yeah, yeah. Of the early Hollywood, the, quote, middle age Broadway career, and the late stage TV career. I love

[00:05:27] Michael: all of that. Because I do think that the audience for this obituary line may know her from a few different places. Yes. On that score, like, nice job capturing the story. I mean, what if they had only gone with murder, she wrote?

[00:05:42] Would you have felt like, boy, you've left some stuff out here? At

[00:05:45] Amit: this point in time, absolutely I would be. Yeah. Had, at the time I read the obituary, probably not. Right. Because I didn't realize there was that much more to her.

[00:05:52] Michael: Right. Yeah, it's funny. So, I, I feel like one of the things that's, Coming up as you and I do the show more and look at more first line of an obituaries is sometimes there's story omissions And sometimes there's like, you know does doing a bigger story come at the expense of more creative verbiage, correct?

[00:06:10] Right, and so I kind of feel like that's what happened here. I'm glad they got the more comprehensive story Yeah in the first line, but I also feel like it came At the expense of perhaps better words to describe, you know, her longevity, her symbolic power, and so forth. Yeah,

[00:06:29] Amit: and I think the word, a word choice that could be missing was the degree to which she was beloved.

[00:06:35] Michael: Folks, our next

[00:06:36] Amit: guest has been nominated for three Academy Awards and has won four Tonys. Please say hello to America's most beloved actress. Angela Lansbury.

[00:06:46] Michael: Yeah. Or in Beard.

[00:06:47] Amit: Yeah. And instead of Formidable, Formidable goes beyond that, right? Or actually it says nothing really about being beloved. Right.

[00:06:53] It's, it's all about, it's all about power and achievement.

[00:06:56] Michael: I agree with that. So, I don't know. There's some good things

[00:06:59] Amit: here. And in the, at the end, around the murder she wrote, what, what did they use to describe murder she

[00:07:04] Michael: wrote? Widowed mystery writer on the long running television series murder she wrote.

[00:07:08] Okay, I'm at peace with that. Yeah, I think so. I think that's a, that's a, The right way to describe that show. Yeah. I'll say one more thing on the story here. I was really worried when you and I chose to do Angela Lansbury, that this was gonna be boring. This is a figure, and I think we'll get to it more as we go along, who, the more research you do, the more...

[00:07:27] Intrigue, trivia, complexity, you find. And I was delighted by that.

[00:07:32] Amit: I remember when we talked the other night, uh, you had suggested something to me about like watching a certain show on TV or listening to something. Yeah. And I was like, no, I gotta watch Murder, She Wrote. Tonight, because I was gonna watch one episode, at least one episode of Murder, She Wrote, because I really don't think I'd ever watched one.

[00:07:48] And during the watching of that episode, I was like, Oh shit, this is going to be a boring episode. Right. Because just looking at that, I was like, I have the same reaction. But then I get deeper into the timeline. It completely changes. Yeah.

[00:08:01] Michael: Yeah. So, uh, I think I've got my score. All right. Hit me with it. I'm going to go seven.

[00:08:06] I just feel like there's a better word than formidable out there. Yeah. Because it's the most important word in the first line of the obituary. I like the comprehensive story here, I just wanted a little bit more attention to the verbiage.

[00:08:19] Amit: So I, I gave it a nine, actually. So I, I agree with you on that word.

[00:08:23] I don't like it a lot. I don't hate it. How about formidable and beloved? Formidable and beloved, I, I would have been okay with. I, I actually

[00:08:31] Michael: would have loved that because there's a contrast in there, right? There's a contrast of connotation and like, oh, that makes her more interesting and she is more interesting.

[00:08:39] Amit: Yeah, and the body of work is so prolific and there's so much of it, I'm okay with it. Murder, She Wrote is the only specific name given. Yeah, yeah. You gotta choose the one, I think, with a career this long. So yeah, I'm going a nine. You're a nine,

[00:08:52] Michael: I'm a seven. Okay. Let's move on. Category two, five things I love about you.

[00:08:56] Here, Amit and I come up with five reasons why we love this person, why we want to be talking about them in the first place. Do you want to

[00:09:03] Amit: lead? I think I will. So number one, she duped me. She duped you. She duped me. So I, all I knew was murder, she wrote. Yeah. You know, and I thought as recently as five nights ago that this is going to be a boring episode.

[00:09:15] Right. You know, I have judged this woman by the last move in her career. And what I love is that what happened before that would have been a headline worthy death without murder, she wrote. Yeah.

[00:09:30] Michael: Had she died in 1983, there was a New York Times obituary to be

[00:09:34] Amit: had. Correct. So this woman's history is immense, right?

[00:09:36] We talked about she started film at... The age of 17 in which she won. I don't remember if she won or was nominated. She was nominated for Gaslight. Again, she was nominated, uh, was the second one Menchurian Candidate. Might've been Dorian Gray, but yeah, anyway. You're right. It was the picture of Dorian Gray.

[00:09:52] Yeah. Right. So two Oscar nominations before the age of 21. One thing that's

[00:09:56] Michael: interesting about her is that she always plays older. And when she's younger, she's playing older women. Yeah.

[00:10:01] Amit: I want to talk a lot about that. Yeah, I assume you do. It's

[00:10:04] Michael: interesting and kind of. I don't know what to make of it.

[00:10:06] Anyway, she duped

[00:10:07] Amit: you, I mean. So, so we get into the story. I'm only at age 40 now. Yeah. We get into this, the run on Broadway, the Tony Awards. Murder, She Wrote didn't start until around age 60 for her. So, I like that I was duped. And this is the thing to love about it, is We look at, at people, especially people older than us, and we assume whatever we see is, has been the story of their life up until that point.

[00:10:32] And I read something in a New Yorker article, it's like, we all thought that maybe she was just a cozy cup of tea. Cozy cup of tea, that's good. But I, uh, I like how wrong we all are about her. And I think that's great. I think that speaks to, yes, you can end up in this sort of grandmotherly, you know, Looking cozy cup of tea, but have been an absolute badass before.

[00:10:54] Yeah. And I never gave credit to the fact that she has a story. Yeah. And she duped me. I

[00:11:01] Michael: love that. Okay, let me go with number two, and you tell me if this is redundant with your number one. Okay. The way she defied ageism for women in Hollywood. Mm hmm. There's a lot about her celebrity... Around murder, she wrote and everything she does afterwards that I just like I'm so delighted by one of the things was she put out a workout video right in 88 right?

[00:11:24] This is the height of like Jane Fonda workout stuff and her workout video. It's among other things. Sounds like very sex positive. She's very sex positive about herself at this age. Like these urges still exist.

[00:11:35] Angela: And I think femininity and sexuality go hand in hand. I believe it's important for a woman to try and maintain a certain sense of mystery about herself.

[00:11:47] And I think that can continue to any age. It's so easy to give up or to get lazy. It's worth it to continue to present yourself as a woman of loveliness and dignity. A woman who feels good and knows she's looking her best.

[00:12:06] Amit: She's 65, I think, when this video comes out.

[00:12:08] Michael: Right! It's not exactly late in life celebrity.

[00:12:11] She was already a celebrity, but there's not a lot of women who... make it to 65 and then like get catapulted into a whole new level of celebrity. Like that is where she really defied the typical story of what it means to be an actress in Hollywood. And, and I think, I think those two things go hand in hand.

[00:12:27] I think that there's a relationship with her body and with, um, with age that, you know, I'm not afraid of aging. That's what I read in all of, of who she is, is like, it is okay and good to be older. You might lose some capability. You may not look like you did when you were 25. That's okay. There's still so much to love about life.

[00:12:47] And here's what that can look like. I think that's, that does move her into the category of approaching icon out of celebrity and into something more symbolically important. Yeah. About what she does in this. You and I are always on the lookout for this on Famous and Gravy, whether it's Fred Willard or Judge Wapner or who else?

[00:13:07] Betty White, obviously. Betty White, obviously, yeah. This was a delightful example of graceful aging. But I also like that she pulled it off in an industry that otherwise would marginalize her. Yep. Awesome. Uh, okay. You take number three.

[00:13:22] Amit: I'll go with a quick one. Um, inventive way to credit a friend. Ah, I like this.

[00:13:27] I know where you're going now. So, she, uh, she was very close friends with, uh, Be Arthur. The golden girl, Be Arthur. The golden girl, Be Arthur. Uh, they became friends because they both originally starred in the musical MAME, which we referenced earlier and will come up again, and then maintained this relationship for the rest of their life.

[00:13:43] Kind of funny if you go back to our episode 50. where we talked about the Golden Girls because it was about Betty White, and where Betty White and Bea Arthur were not exactly friends. Absolutely not. However, Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur were absolutely friends, and the way she paid tribute to her friend Bea Arthur is that when they named the character Jessica Fletcher for Murder She Wrote, she gave the middle name Beatrice.

[00:14:06] It was Jessica Beatrice Fletcher. Oh! And I love that subtle way. to give a tribute to a friend. Oh, that's awesome. I,

[00:14:13] Michael: where I thought you were going to go was the invitation of a lot of old friends to have cameo parts on Murder, She Wrote. And she did do that. Yes. She developed a real reputation for people who were not finding work.

[00:14:25] She was like, Oh, we'll figure out a way to get you on your show. There was even a woman who had been diagnosed with MS, multiple sclerosis, who was having a hard time finding enough work to stay part of the union. And Angela Lansbury wrote her into an episode so that she would keep her union status and her health benefits.

[00:14:41] Amit: Let's take that. Let's, let's lump that in and just say, finding ways to include a friend. I love the Bea Arthur middle name, but I love your example too. And I did hear about that. Yeah. And

[00:14:50] Michael: I think there's a lot of examples on Murder, She Wrote. What happens with Murder, She Wrote is that she lands the part, but then she eventually moves into being an executive producer.

[00:14:59] I think as she had more power over the show, she had these kinds of gestures. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was.

[00:15:04] Amit: Her show by the middle of it. A hundred percent. Yeah, yeah,

[00:15:07] Michael: yeah. Okay. God, I don't know what to go with next. I've got a few different things. I'm, I'm going to go with this. This is also stepping on later categories, but I want to introduce this idea here as my thing.

[00:15:18] Number four. Work life balance is impossible, but her willingness to divert attention to what's needed and pivot to what's most needed when it's most needed in her life, I really admire. Okay. So, there are times where her career is going great, there are times where her career is going not so great. There are times where her family seems to be doing well, and there are times where her family is in a state of crisis.

[00:15:44] And, she is... The breadwinner and her willingness to go, do I pay more attention to work or do I pay more attention to family here? I'm not saying that she necessarily made the right decisions at different stages of life But what I saw was a willingness to say Okay, this deserves more attention or that deserves more attention at any given moment in a way that I really respect.

[00:16:08] Does that make sense? Yeah. And I'm stepping on future

[00:16:10] Amit: discussions. I think all of our points are that's what happens in a life this long. Yeah.

[00:16:15] Michael: Is that, um, coincidental or is that a correlation or is that causation? I mean, I some, I wonder if her life is this long in part because of How

[00:16:23] Amit: she did it. Of all of the implementations that we're talking about.

[00:16:26] Exactly, you know. Yeah, I mean, bubble baths at age 65 is going to add at least 30 years, clearly. Not to mention a little lovin And puttering about. That was another thing that was in her video.

[00:16:35] Michael: That counts for like, calorie burning. There's nothing wrong with puttering about. Yes. I hadn't heard that phrase before today.

[00:16:40] Isn't that great? Did

[00:16:41] Angela: you know that in researching the value of everyday activities, doctors have proven that puttering is actually valuable for your health and contributes to your longevity?

[00:16:54] Michael: All right, so that's my number four. Willingness to give attention to what's needed most when it's needed most.

[00:17:00] Okay. All right, you're

[00:17:00] Amit: number five. I am choosing Gay Icon because I think the arc is far too interesting. It is. And we'll get into this in Love and Marriage, but her first marriage was at the age of 19 to a man named... Richard Cromwell. They were only married a year because he was gay. Yeah, he came out.

[00:17:16] And he just simply, like, left a note to her saying, Sorry, I can't do it.

[00:17:20] Michael: He was a silent movie star, too. Like,

[00:17:22] Amit: he was in Hollywood. Yeah, and she was so young, but she said she was shattered and devastated, but, you know, they remained very close up until his death. Yeah. She was very understanding. A lot of...

[00:17:31] People can like carry that anger all the way through life. I mean, that, that is shattering your world. But it didn't shatter hers. Exactly. It didn't shatter hers. And in fact, she became a gay icon. Yes. So her story of becoming a gay icon goes back actually before the marriage. She used to have lots of gay friends when they lived in the village and then later in la Yeah.

[00:17:52] She ran with, uh, gay crowds. I,

[00:17:54] Michael: I mean there's a lot more to her becoming a, a sort of gay icon figure. But her activism

[00:17:59] Amit: around H I V. Yeah, so let me get to that chronologically. So Mame, the musical, is what really launched her into being a gay icon. Right. For whatever reason, this character of Mame Dennis, who she played, was described as every gay person's idea of glamour.

[00:18:13] That's when she started becoming an icon to the gay community. Yeah. As her career went on, especially with her biggest platform of all, of murder she wrote, she devoted a lot of it. To gay rights and AIDS awareness early too. That's one of very, very early. Yeah. Right. And in the eighties, you know, AIDS is political.

[00:18:30] It was seen as one of the largest threats to society. Yeah. You know, it was really alienating for the gay community and she. defied all of that. This trajectory of how she became a gay icon, I think, at first, is just very fascinating. But secondly, I think just being an icon and being an advocate for a community that just seems so non, uh, parallel to your own.

[00:18:53] Yeah. Uh, I think it's a desirable thing and I think it's something that we should all think about. That's interesting. Like what, what I would like, you know, hopefully at some point in my life that whatever I, uh, have achieved or not achieved, that I am seen as an icon of some way by some, uh, unexpected community.

[00:19:11] I mean, I was going to say first expected for Indian American youth and I don't care how small three of them is good enough. Yeah. Right. I

[00:19:18] Michael: feel like I can go find those guys. Yeah.

[00:19:19] Amit: But maybe, hopefully it's. I don't know, but I, I, if, if at all, you have the opportunity to be an icon again, big or small, I'm counting three people as, as good enough to a community that does not represent yourself demographically.

[00:19:33] I, that is brilliant legacy. Yeah,

[00:19:35] Michael: that's cool. And you kind of can't plan for it either. No, it just happens. Right. But it does come from a moral center. Uh, and, and a, and a knowledge of self and right and wrong that, that's so that it just, you know, becomes an emergent

[00:19:49] Amit: property. I think that's a perfect summation, Michael.

[00:19:50] You can plan for it, but if you really feel something in your heart or you really feel something for a community in your heart and you do something about it, yeah, this is a possible consequence. But I think that's the lesson is just do that.

[00:20:03] Michael: It's a good lesson. All right. Let's summarize. So number one, you said.

[00:20:08] She

[00:20:08] Amit: duped me. Number two, I said, uh, Anti ageist. Anti,

[00:20:11] Michael: yeah, there we go. Anti ageist. Number three.

[00:20:14] Amit: Creatively crediting her friends.

[00:20:15] Michael: Love that one. Number four, uh, willingness to give attention to whatever's needed most, when it's needed most. And number five, gay icon.

[00:20:23] Amit: Let's just call that icon to a different demographic.

[00:20:26] I like that. Yeah.

[00:20:27] Michael: Icon to a different demographic. Uh, let's take a break.

[00:20:32] Amit: Michael, you know, when we go to restaurants and I don't know what to order, then ultimately I'll just ask the server, well, what should I order next? Yeah. And I wish a similar thing existed for other things I consume, like, like books.

[00:20:47] Did you say for books?

[00:20:49] Michael: For books. Oh, well, that's easy. If you go to half price books, there are All kinds of people who work in the store who are excellent at recommending books. Have you ever done

[00:20:59] Amit: this? No, I've never known to ask them. I thought they were just,

[00:21:03] Michael: they are knowledge keepers. They are readers and they're there to say, Hey, how can I help you?

[00:21:09] What are you reading these days? What are you into? What are you looking for? I mean, every time I've gotten into a conversation with one of the Half Price Books employees, I've always walked out of there with something new that was

[00:21:19] Amit: assless. So you're saying I can go ask a Half Price Books bookseller if I don't know what to read next, or I'm looking for a gift idea?

[00:21:28] I think that's exactly

[00:21:29] Michael: right. You don't need to know what you're going to buy when you walk into Half Price Books. And if you just need a book, These people are there to help. And you know what? Half Price Books is the nation's largest new and used bookseller, with 120 stores in 19 states. And Half Price Books is also online at hpb.

[00:21:48] com.

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[00:22:48] Amit: Category 3. Malkovich, Malkovich.

[00:22:51] Michael: This category is named after the movie, Being John Malkovich, in which people can take a little portal into John Malkovich's mind and have a front row seat to his experiences.

[00:23:01] Amit: Okay, I have a question for you. Does August 9th mean anything to you? That's my birthday. It is your birthday, sir. Okay. It's also a cursed day. Without the one I'm going to mention, tell me what else has happened on August 9th in

[00:23:12] Michael: history. Nagasaki was bombed on August 9th. Richard Nixon resigned on August 9th.

[00:23:17] Jerry Garcia died on August 9th.

[00:23:20] Amit: Okay, bad shit goes down. Bad shit goes down. Except for that beautiful day in the 70s when Michael Osborne was

[00:23:26] born.

[00:23:26] Michael: There was one silver

[00:23:28] Amit: lining in another way. Yeah, so August 9th, 1969 is the day in infamy of the largest Manson family murders. So why are we talking about this on an episode about Angela Lansbury?

[00:23:41] Because this was very, very close to her life. Yes. She had two children, Deirdre and Andrew, as well as a stepson. So Deirdre and Andrew, this is when Angela is really taking off in her Broadway career. They get very into 60s counterculture. They're living in LA, very into drug culture. Deirdre specifically is running with crowds that Angela is not completely privy to, but she slowly starts to pick up on.

[00:24:09] One person in particular has her stealing food from around the house, and even stealing money from around the house. And kind of they follow.

[00:24:23] Deirdre, or try to learn sort of where she is hanging about. They know drugs are an issue. Eventually their, um, detective work leads them to find out that she is hanging out with the Manson family. Free murders,

[00:24:36] Michael: to be clear, family is creepy at this point.

[00:24:40] Amit: Yeah. It's an ascending, you know, it starts out in this community.

[00:24:43] On a ranch that is more hippie oriented, but then just slowly gets crazier and more radicalized. Right, and darker, yeah. And culty. And culty. And so, her and her husband find out and pull Deirdre away from this family. That was 1968. Yes. So one year later, there is this stream of murders, most famously the August 9th ones in which they murdered a pregnant Sharon Tate.

[00:25:09] Yes. And this is national news, this is worldwide news, because this is the crazy ass culmination of the 60s. And so Angela Lansbury, at that point, hears this news and she has to look at what she, that she was able to pull. The bullets she just dodged! The bullets she just dodged! So, I guess that's it. Yeah.

[00:25:27] You know, I want to be behind the eyes when you dodge a bullet. Yeah. There's a lot of questions I have that would run through my head is, is it a sigh of phew? Like relief of how close were we or is it a what if I didn't just do this one little thing or catch up on this one little thing. My daughter could have been in a slew of murders or been murdered herself.

[00:25:46] Michael: Great one. Alright, so mine is very shortly thereafter. You mentioned her son, I think you said Andrew, his name is actually Anthony if I'm not mistaken. I'm not

[00:25:56] Amit: doing good on names

[00:25:56] Michael: today. That's okay. Anthony is also having problems in his 20s and has developed a nasty cocaine addiction. So both of her children are really caught up in some very problematic situations.

[00:26:11] In 1970, There comes a point where Angela Lansbury turns to her husband Peter and says, We have got to give our attention to our children. And they decide to move back to Ireland. So Angela Lansbury is

[00:26:24] Amit: half Irish. She was born in Britain. Her grandmother was, her mother was true Irish. Right. So extended family must have been an Irish must have spent a good bit of time there.

[00:26:33] Right, exactly.

[00:26:34] Michael: So she decides to move to Ireland with her children and with her husband and completely focus on family. This is around the time of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but most of her attention at this time is on her children, who at this point are young adults. The reason this is a Malkovich moment for me is because this is a little bit of a fantasy of mine, of if things are ever going really, really wrong, you know what I need to do?

[00:27:00] Buy a house in the country, and I will give them my attention, and

[00:27:04] Amit: hopefully, Fix them. You'll give them all your attention. All of your attention. Yeah, as opposed to divide it. Correct. It

[00:27:11] Michael: sounds like it actually worked here. I wonder if it does work for most people. But that's what they

[00:27:17] Amit: did.

[00:27:18] Michael: And I think, again, it came at some sacrifice to her career.

[00:27:21] She had to step away from Broadway musicals for the most

[00:27:24] Amit: part at this time. She thought about stopping her entire acting career.

[00:27:27] Michael: Yeah. So, Mike Malkovich is the dinner table conversation with her husband of I think we need to just buy a house in Ireland. I kind of want to know what went into that conversation, like, why?

[00:27:39] Well, you know, what were they picturing? How were they approaching that decision? How were they identifying their children's needs at that point? And what did they envision

[00:27:49] Amit: happening? It's

[00:27:50] Michael: a, more than anything, a parenting moment. That I'm just

[00:27:52] Amit: really curious about.

[00:27:54] Angela: I said to Peter, look, perhaps if we totally change our way of life, and we go back to basics, it didn't matter.

[00:28:03] We were safe. We were on safe ground. What was the most important thing, perhaps, that you and Peter learned about your family, about the kids, about this? To be there. To be there.

[00:28:14] Amit: That's my malkovich. Yeah, that's great. And what it makes me think of, 'cause you asked like what is going through your head, and I think there is an inventory being taken of what matters most to us.

[00:28:24] I don't think there's a pad and a pen. Yeah. And the question inevitably services between her and her husband, is there anything more important than our children? Right. Even though our children are mid twenties or whatever at this point. Yeah. And there is nothing more important to that. I

[00:28:38] Michael: think we just dodged a bullet with one of our kids almost being caught up in the Manson family murders.

[00:28:43] Exactly. Yeah, how do we do this?

[00:28:47] Amit: Yeah, I agree. It's an incredibly human moment. Yeah.

[00:28:51] Michael: Moving on. Category four, love and marriage. How many marriages? Also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? We can probably move through this fairly quickly, as we've already discussed quite a bit.

[00:29:02] Two marriages, Richard Cromwell, Uh, Angela was 19, they divorced at 20, Richard Cromwell does come out. It's interesting, she says she was devastated, but she doesn't sound like she actually totally regrets it. They have an ongoing friendship, and she does say, one, I learned a lot, and I was so young I was in love with being in love.

[00:29:23] I was in love with the idea of being a wife. Yes. Right, at this point. At 19. I know, and she's got a lot of like self forgiveness around her, which is cool. So husband number two, Peter Shaw, this is 1949. Angelo was 24. Peter died in 2003 when Angelo was 78. She never remarried. Two kids we've already discussed.

[00:29:43] One stepson, five grandkids and two great grandkids, which I love. Great grandkids are the icing on the cake. Yeah. Looks like a really good marriage.

[00:29:52] Amit: Looks like a really

[00:29:53] Michael: good marriage. He was an actor turned agent, I think. Or, you know, becomes a sort of player behind the scenes. And I think he represented some pretty serious people.

[00:30:01] Yeah. If I'm not mistaken. It also does sound like everybody in the family, including her son, becomes involved in murder, she wrote, as a... Enterprise. Right. Um, it's, I think by season four or five when the head, the original head writer I think moves

[00:30:17] Amit: on. And she incorporated her son in a lot of those things, a lot of her theater work and all too

[00:30:21] Michael: as well.

[00:30:21] Yeah. You know, I think navigating a Hollywood, like family life in Hollywood, like looks really hard. And Yeah. Right. Overall, I saw somebody who, she didn't, like, wear it on her sleeve as I'm in love with my family. You see it more in her behavior than you do hear it in the interviews.

[00:30:39] Amit: Yeah. It's hard to get a read on.

[00:30:41] It is. It's

[00:30:41] Michael: formidable. Yeah. I'm not sure there's a whole lot more to discuss, other than, like, Let's just talk about this. We talked, we sort of alluded to it earlier. So I have known a couple of people whose spouses came out after they were married. Yeah, I have as well. And, like, it can be devastating. It might not be.

[00:31:01] I imagine what's hard about it is that you trust your own... Intuition about a person, if you can't detect their sexual preferences, you know, that, that, like, you get into a marriage and, oh, you like the same sex, how did I not know that? What does that say about me that I couldn't advise? Is that the nature of the devastation?

[00:31:25] I guess that's the thing I wanted to talk about.

[00:31:26] Amit: Not having been in the situation, I think it's, it's equal. I think it's a questioning of yourself and how you could not see it, how you fell for the quote lie. And secondly, like, how can I trust somebody else if somebody else is going to enter into this multi year lie?

[00:31:40] I mean, this was a one year marriage. It's very different than probably the stories of our friends that we're talking about. Right. This is

[00:31:46] Michael: also in a context where there's a lot more prejudice against homosexuality. Yeah. The way she navigated and dealt with it is actually, in some ways, very, very impressive from what I can see.

[00:31:56] You know, you said something in the Ross Perot episode, because he had it on his desk, what is it? The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation? Uh,

[00:32:05] Amit: that's it. Yeah, by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

[00:32:07] Michael: And then there's another sort of adjacent quote of, you know, and I always mangle this one, but everybody you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

[00:32:14] The more you and I do this show, the more... real that idea becomes for me. You just really don't know what's going on with somebody else. And it's incredible what happens within the human psyche. This is not necessarily an exceptional example of that, but I do feel like that is the thought pattern that somebody who finds themselves in this situation might fall into is like, God, how could I not know that?

[00:32:36] And I don't know. I hope we live in a world where there's just less self judgment around that, but it's hard to know. Yeah. Share that message.

[00:32:44] Amit: I think there's another point in love and marriage that's important here that has to do with her producing and character role. Okay. So, in Murder, She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher was always single.

[00:32:53] She was widowed. Yeah. And they never wrote a love interest into this. Uh, show through 270 episodes. Yeah, that's important. And she, she was very vehemently against it. Cause she thought part of the role was to show that, you know, this person can remain true to their spouse who was deceased. And she thought it was important to show that you can live fulfilled without a romantic partner.

[00:33:14] Yeah. And that Jessica Fletcher was a display of a very fulfilled

[00:33:19] Michael: woman. You know what would make a great essay? Uh, uh, compare and contrast, uh, Mary Tyler Moore and Angela Lansbury with the shows that they're most associated with. Like Mary Tyler Moore's relationship with the Mary Tyler Moore show and her symbolic power as a feminist figure and Angela Lansbury and Jessica Fletcher and her power as a feminist figure.

[00:33:41] I'd like to see somebody kind of like do a compare and contrast article on that. Okay. So let's put that out to the listeners. Yeah. Okay. Alright, let's move on. Category five, net worth.

[00:33:51] Amit: 70 million. 70 million. Huge felt right. Felt absolutely right. And I think that maybe this is what

[00:33:57] Michael: It's

[00:33:57] Amit: all audience. It's all murder.

[00:33:59] She wrote money. It's all, it's all money. She wrote It's all Money. Money she wrote. That's exactly right. It's um, you know what, at one point it was up to a hundred million even in the eighties. Is that right? That placed her amongst one of the richest women in America. Is that right? Yeah. Wow. So I did a little sleuthing.

[00:34:13] She was making, and you know, we're talking mid 80s. She was making 200, 000 an episode. I don't think people

[00:34:18] Michael: realize just how big that show was. I think it's been a little bit lost in television history. Just like what a ratings behemoth it

[00:34:26] Amit: was. Yeah. I mean, it was, I mean, it was in the Sunday night coveted spot, you know?

[00:34:31] And later they, they, well, this was

[00:34:33] Michael: his demise, right? Is that as NBC is heating up their Thursday night slot, they, CBS decides to put it up against friends. It gets crushed. Angela Lansbury was furious about this, and the show never recovered. They tried to move it back, and CBS did a big mea culpa, but by that point, you know, it all but, you know, stumbled into killing the show.

[00:34:52] Amit: They even moved the setting of the show to New York. Yeah. We're gonna get into a little bit of her fame here, but she had big endorsements too, for, I think, Bufferin? Now you can ask Angela Lansbury

[00:35:03] Michael: about Bufferin. Miss Lansbury, how can Bufferin be so strong if it has buffers?

[00:35:08] Angela: I wondered myself, till I heard that the buffers don't weaken it, they just help prevent aspirin stomach upset.

[00:35:14] I depend on Bufferin.

[00:35:15] Amit: The point is, the wealth was not all from the show, but the show was that big.

[00:35:21] Michael: I would also say to the point about endorsements, I mean, it's sort of amazing that she's obviously connecting with a demographic that is not otherwise Yes. Like in Bufferin, I don't know who's buying it, but I can take a pretty good guess at the age demographic for that.

[00:35:35] Totally. Right? And so that she would have endorsement opportunities actually makes a ton of sense to me. Absolutely. Because how many other people are talking to the over 65

[00:35:43] Amit: crowd? Yeah, the same way that the show found that popularity because it was representing a demographic not otherwise represented.

[00:35:49] Yes. Companies and advertising agencies need to also find that person. Yeah,

[00:35:55] Michael: totally. Uh, by the way, 70 million, good number, god damn. Yeah. All right, let's move on. Category six, Simpsons Saturday Night Live or Halls of Fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person was. We include both guest appearances on SNL or The Simpsons, as well as impersonations.

[00:36:10] So, there's not a

[00:36:12] Amit: lot

[00:36:12] Michael: here. Uh, Simpsons, there's a brief mention of her in a... Episode called a star is born. It's carnival of the stars

[00:36:23] Amit: I'm your host troy mclure tonight. We'll see angela lansbury walk on hot coals excitement

[00:36:30] Michael: she wrote Uh, nothing on snl that I saw no arsenio hall. She does have a hollywood star I was a little surprised by that.

[00:36:38] I would have thought that saturday night live might have invited.

[00:36:42] Amit: I'm really surprised

[00:36:43] Michael: And I absolutely would have thought that she not only would have been impersonated, but even like asked to guest voice on the Simpsons. I don't know, how famous is she? I brought up with a friend of mine who's in his mid thirties.

[00:36:56] I'm doing an episode on Angela Lansbury, and he's like, oh yeah, I know exactly who she is. And this is a guy who was born, you know, well before Murder, She Wrote's heyday. So, there's something about the name that's got a very, it's

[00:37:09] Amit: so English. And she's a dame, Angela Lansbury. Yeah, I think that actually helps in how long people recognize you.

[00:37:15] Yeah. Right? If you're knighted or you're, um, part of this queen's order. Yeah, and there

[00:37:20] Michael: is something, I think, the Disney work, I think, matters a lot. That, you know, if you know her voice from Beauty and the Beast, or you saw Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which is, you know, a movie, it's not quite Willy Wonka, but it's a similar sort of thing, where, this came up with Alan Rickman too, that, you know, a lot of the younger generation knows him as Snape.

[00:37:40] And so there are, like, movies that are very important for children that keep a person famous long after they, you know, might

[00:37:49] Amit: otherwise be. Yeah.

[00:37:51] Angela: Tale as old as time,

[00:37:57] as it can be,

[00:38:01] Amit: barely even

[00:38:03] Angela: friends, then somebody bends, unexpectedly.

[00:38:10] Michael: So, I tend to think of her as fairly famous. I was a little disappointed that there was no

[00:38:14] Amit: Simpsons center. I think fairly famous gave it two generations. Yeah. Because to us, she was even the old lady. Yeah. Right. So, everyone, one more generation preceding, she's going to be off the map.

[00:38:23] Well, and this is a

[00:38:24] Michael: pretty good segue. Sorry. This is a pretty good segue into the next category, category seven over under in this category. We look at the life expectancy for the year that somebody was born to see if they beat the house odds and to look for signs of graceful aging. So the life expectancy for a British woman born in 1925 was 58.

[00:38:43] 1. She lived to 96, almost 97. She beat it by 39 years, so crushed it. We haven't brought this up yet, but she was actually a. Nice spot on the dead or alive app there was a lot of people were like, oh, is she still here? Like so when she died a year ago people were like, oh, okay, that makes sense Like not everybody knew she was still around.

[00:39:03] Amit: Yeah, and she was one of those that like everyone was hoping for the century club Yeah, I was along with the Queen she died within months of the Queen There were a lot of comparisons between Queen Elizabeth and Angela Lansbury Yeah, and then even with Betty White and Bob Barker all in the over 95 club I would say,

[00:39:20] Michael: in the pantheon of graceful aging, it's hard to top it.

[00:39:24] She was not just like, cognitively bright, she's like, physically able. I mean, she's moving around, and she's, she looks great. Yeah. You know, well into old age, like incredible. Totally. This is the kind of grace that I deeply desire.

[00:39:38] Amit: Yeah, I mean, there is an irony that she did this video at the age of 65 about graceful aging, and she had another 31, 32 years to go.

[00:39:46] I mean, incredible. I

[00:39:48] Angela: feel the better you take care of yourself, the more you can bring to your relationships. By being involved in life in a hopeful way, you reward yourself and your enthusiasm is very compelling for others to be around. There are lots of things that I haven't had a chance yet to do in my life.

[00:40:07] I have so much to look forward to and so do you.

[00:40:12] Michael: Well done

[00:40:12] Amit: on the graceful aging. Mm

[00:40:14] Michael: hmm. Let's take another break. Okay. Category 8. Man in the Mirror. What did they think about their own

[00:40:22] Amit: reflection? So this is a toughie. I think because of so many things she said about how Hollywood made her older. Yeah.

[00:40:30] That she was, she was immediately not made into a starlet. Yeah. Right? She was immediately playing roles beyond her age of a different maturity or sometimes of a different sanity. Yes. You know, the examples that were most often given is in Manchurian Candidate. She played the mother of Lawrence Harvey.

[00:40:47] And she was only three years older than him. Right. When she played Elvis mother in Blue Hawaii, she was only nine years older than Elvis. Like she was always cast as the older mother or the older grandmother, you know, 20 years ahead of her time. Yeah. I don't know how that makes somebody feel. But did

[00:41:03] Angela: you want

[00:41:03] Amit: to be the

[00:41:04] Angela: lovely ingenue getting the man in the movies instead of always being the one he left?

[00:41:08] You bet I did. I, I, you know, I. Desperately wanted to look like the girls who sat at the makeup tables next to me at MGM and I envied them. Was the ingenue treated differently than the characters? Yeah, she had a better dressing room than I did. Things like that. Silly, those things really rankle with you, you know, when you're young.

[00:41:30] Oh, gosh, how come she gets to have this and I don't?

[00:41:34] Michael: If you look at young Angela Lansbury pictures, she's beautiful. Yeah. She's a beautiful woman. So she's under contract with MGM during those studio, that's how studios operated back in the day. You'd go under contract with the studio, right? It does sound like they decided not to try and play up her as a sort of starlet property.

[00:41:54] And the way she describes herself is, I'm actually a character actor. It almost sounds like she had to learn that

[00:42:00] Amit: about herself. So do you think this affected her self image? Yeah,

[00:42:05] Michael: it had to have because of the importance of self image in this culture and who she's up against. I mean, and she's friends with Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Crawford and so forth.

[00:42:15] And you know, these very pretty women, but you're like, she's not quite, it doesn't quite have the same market value as their attractiveness for whatever weird reason, and keeps getting cast as these older ladies and playing older, right? I think that there's some self doubt in there. But I also think that, like, especially as time goes on, there's one, a tremendous amount of self acceptance, and two, I think that she really finds herself on the stage.

[00:42:44] I mean, the way she talks about the theater, right? And it's just, it sounds so, like, oh, this is where... I get to connect with audiences without the medium of a screen and a camera, right? This is where they get to see who, who I really can be and who I can really play. I suspect that she developed a greater man in the mirror experience as she sort of rediscovers and discovers the stage.

[00:43:10] So, overall, I think she... But yes, I, I also think that she had some frustrations with how her looks were

[00:43:19] Amit: interpreted. So, I'm, I'm going with you. I think she was frustrated, I think, as a young person, it's very difficult, a young person in Hollywood. Yeah. Especially, I think, after, you know, her fifties, or maybe even after her forties, she really, Yeah.

[00:43:32] But I think another way to look at it is, I think she's also the type that just is proud of the corner that she occupies. I think so. You know, it's a, it's a pretty white space that there is not a lot of mega stars that occupy this slightly different profile and no one is calling her ugly. Probably the worst she received was plain, which I don't even think is true.

[00:43:55] I mean, Angela Lansbury, at her young age, even through middle age, is, is... Good looking, but in the world of entertainment, she occupied a specific corner, and knowing what we know about her, I think there's pride behind that. I've got,

[00:44:07] Michael: uh, one other thing I'd like to add to Man in the Mirror. I have these friends who are, they're cat people.

[00:44:12] They have, uh, three or four cats at their house at any given time. You know, cats come and go, but there's a cat that they own. I can't even remember the name of this cat, whose face really reminds me of Angela Lansbury. And I don't know if Angela Lansbury has feline features or it's this cat that's Angela Lansbury like.

[00:44:31] But every time I think of Angela Lansbury's face, I think of this cat. Okay. I don't know, have you ever heard the thing that like most babies look like either Winston Churchill or Alfred Hitchcock? Yes. It's kind of like that, right? Um, I think there's, we could probably come up with three or four faces that cats

[00:44:47] Amit: faces look like.

[00:44:48] Yeah, I would like feline features to be considered as a feature category. But applied only to males. Okay, sounds good.

[00:44:55] Michael: Anyway, wanted to get that in there. Alright, Category 9, Outgoing Message. Like Man in the Mirror, we want to know how they felt about their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine.

[00:45:04] And would they have the humility to record it themselves, or would they use the default setting? So, I think she liked the acting version of her voice. I think she liked performance, Angela.

[00:45:16] Amit: Tell me, when is

[00:45:17] Angela: it my turn? Don't I get a dream for myself? Starting now, it's gonna be my turn. Gatway, we're good off on

[00:45:23] Amit: my runway.

[00:45:24] Starting now, I spat a thousand. This time, boys, I'm takin up right.

[00:45:32] Michael: But I don't So, there was a quote from her biographer, described her as meticulous, cautious, self editing, and deliberate. It's what the British call reserved. That's absolutely who she is. She was, in some ways, intensely private. She starts to give a little bit more interviews, um, when she starts winning all these Lifetime Achievement Awards, and when her biography comes out.

[00:45:51] But, you know, there's a guardedness around Angela Lansbury. And, when you hear her interviewed, You'll hear her use the words, um, shall we say, or let's call it, or she'll sort of like

[00:46:03] Amit: signpost her language. Very, very like British intonations.

[00:46:07] Michael: Yes, but it's also like, here's what I will say and here's what I won't say.

[00:46:11] That's the subtext of let's say, uh, or shall we say, or whatever. I think that relates a little bit to both her relationship with her voice and humility. I actually don't think she likes it. I don't think she dislikes the sound of her own voice necessarily, but I do think that she's a little scared of what she might say if she's not monitoring her speech.

[00:46:35] So I think that there's a disconnected relationship with

[00:46:38] Amit: her voice. Interesting, because I just see that as a characteristic I know in a lot of British people. I mean, I agree

[00:46:44] Michael: this is a cultural characteristic more than an Angela Lansbury characteristic. Yeah. But that reserved quality is just, it's very striking to me, uh, I guess.

[00:46:54] When I hear her... or see her interviewed, I think that there is this, like, ever present fear that I'm going to say something that I regret. So I think she

[00:47:03] Amit: doesn't like it. Okay, I want to get into the humility part, but I actually disagree with you on the liking. Okay. I just see, I see self assuredness in her.

[00:47:10] I don't like her voice. Her voice is kind of disturbing to me. Yeah. Especially as Jessica Fletcher. Just doesn't sit well with me. Tell me you're wrong. You are

[00:47:18] Angela: wrong. Wrong? Wrong about

[00:47:19] Amit: what? About Vivian Proctor carrying on with that Eric Bowman fella. Oh,

[00:47:23] Angela: I'm not upset about

[00:47:25] Amit: that. Maybe it's, it's kind of what you said about schoolteacher, it just like, it's got this sort of, you might, this, you might be in trouble type of voice.

[00:47:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does that patronize, does that mean patronizing?

[00:47:35] Michael: Maybe, I don't know if that's the perfect word for it, but intimidating. Yeah. I mean, this came up, I think that there is something intimidating about her properness, right? Yes. And her, she, she does carry a certain authority about her that I think can be, Uh, a little bit intimidating.

[00:47:50] Um, but I also think that there is a, I don't know, there's, that reserved quality does lend itself to, to me at least, to thinking about a little fear. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, we disagree on that. Humility though, I'm, is more of a coin toss for me. What do you think here? I, really a tough

[00:48:05] Amit: coin toss. Yeah. I, uh, It just, I, this is a speculation just on the air she gives in the interviews, and she does have that, that queen, that queenish demeanor.

[00:48:15] Um, I'm, I'm gonna go no. And I think it just comes territorially more than it is actually a character trait or character flaw of Angelo. I think

[00:48:25] Michael: that's right. It's, it's not necessarily pompous, um, or, or above it, although maybe that's an element of it. That said, I, I feel like she draws boundaries, and I don't think she loves celebrity, right?

[00:48:37] I think that she, I don't think she loves being famous. No. I suspect she wants to draw lines where she could and therefore probably would not have left. the voicemail. Yeah, I think we agree. Okay. Category 10. Control Z. This is where we look for the big do overs. The things in life you might have done differently.

[00:48:56] Amit: I struggled with this one. The, the biggest I found was in that, that move to Thursday night for murder, she wrote in 93 to go up against friends. That's a good one. That they knew. She should have fought that. Yeah, she should have fought that more. And I don't know how much power she had, uh, with the network, but that was the death of the show.

[00:49:16] It was. And, um, yeah, that's the biggest one I

[00:49:19] Angela: got. I mean, we were totally successful. Not only that, but, uh, my agreement with, uh, CBS was that I would always be on at 8 o'clock on Sunday night. By contract. Actually, apparently it was never on paper, which I can fault some people for, but I won't. However... They did move us and I, I was just shocked and terribly unhappy and very mad.

[00:49:46] All of those things. You knew it wasn't going to work. Oh, of course.

[00:49:51] Amit: This is

[00:49:52] Michael: carelessness. This is studio executive moron moves,

[00:49:55] Amit: right? I mean, they should have known better. Yes and no, but I think also the 90s were pivoting away into this very, like, youthful, single culture thing between the Friends and Seinfeld and even 90210, what we were talking about a few episodes ago.

[00:50:10] I think it may have just been time to sunset it in the way TV was being consumed then.

[00:50:15] Michael: I like that, Control Z. All right. Category 11, cocktail, coffee, or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity? It's maybe a question of what drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person.

[00:50:28] Or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them that we are most curious about.

[00:50:34] Amit: You want to go? Yeah. Cannabis. I do. I go for most British people. I go cannabis because I can't decode them. Yeah. In what form? Yeah. Um, I, I'm gonna hit . I'm gonna one-two puncher, probably like, have her take an edible and then there's gonna be a vape pen or a great, a, um, a body and mine or a joint in, in like an hour.

[00:50:55] Yeah. I have to break the armor. I don't know how I, like, I watched eight hours of interviews of this woman. Yeah. And I, I still don't have a good, good read on her perspective on life. Yeah. It seems to be. I like simplicity, I like home, I like acting for acting's sake, I don't like fame and recognition, but I'm not getting at the full admissions of what she sees, and I think 96 years on the planet, 80 of which were in the public eye, this woman has to have hot takes.

[00:51:31] I think Angela and I have to get stoned out of our minds in order for that to come out.

[00:51:36] Michael: So I had cocktail for the exact same reason. I want to crack the icy armor here, and I want to get into the psyche, but what are we interested in specifically? Are we interested in the inner experience more than anything?

[00:51:50] Do we feel like we don't know that? Like, we both, you want to get her high, I want to get her drunk. Just so we can get, like, to what's really going on on some level. But what is it exactly that we're interested

[00:52:00] Amit: in? I think it's the same as if I were to have time with, um, I was going to say the Dalai Lama, but I'm not going to get the Dalai Lama high.

[00:52:08] Um, it's, I, I think she has a perspective of, of not so much what to do, of what not to do. And there's no evidence that she's given us much. So you're talking about a judgment? No, I mean living a fulfilled life. Oh. In, in what she's seen and what she's done. I fully believe her that she is fulfilled and that she is content, but the lessons are all inferred.

[00:52:31] Yeah. You know, everything we've talked about this is inferred. She doesn't give a lot. So

[00:52:35] Michael: it's confirmation on some level that you're most interested in. Yeah.

[00:52:39] Amit: Or, or I think there are actually. Overt lessons, aside from everything that we've talked about so far in this episode, that she is guarding. Yeah.

[00:52:47] For, for no other reason than it's just not in her natural character.

[00:52:52] Michael: Yeah, no, I, I like that and I agree with that. I have the

[00:52:54] Amit: same sort of take. So why did you go alcohol instead of weed? For me, with

[00:52:59] Michael: weed and pot, cannabis, whatever it may be, that usually there's a sort of unlocking of imagination, and alcohol is more of an unlocking of psyche.

[00:53:09] Coffee is often about an unlocking of intellect, and I think that's here, but it's not where my deepest curiosity resides. It is in exactly what you pointed to, the psyche. What life lessons can you offer us, Angela? You've shown us some, maybe. I feel like if pushed on this question, you could actually put into words what they might be that...

[00:53:28] You know, are important because I feel like this is a, she is a really important example of a long and fulfilling life. But God damn it. I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth, you know, and I'd like to hear it, you know, thought through a little bit more, not just like, well, I got lucky, you know, and I got the right breaks at the right time and managed to avoid some, you know, dodge a few bullets here and there.

[00:53:49] Like that's a little bit unsatisfying. Yeah. You know, I feel like there's more to be extracted and I'm not sure we ever quite got it. I'm not sure she was capable

[00:53:57] Amit: of giving it. That, right? Yeah, exactly. I think that's where we differ a little bit, is we both say psyche, but mine does lean more in the imagination.

[00:54:05] I think it has to be triggered within her, other than just releasing the inhibitions. Yeah.

[00:54:11] Michael: Okay. We've made it. Final category. The Van Der Beek. Yes. It's after James Van Der Beek. Famously said in Varsity Blues. I don't want

[00:54:19] Amit: your life. Amen. Seems pretty damn good, right? Pretty hard

[00:54:25] Michael: not to go a pretty strong yes here.

[00:54:27] What's the case

[00:54:28] Amit: against? No youth. Her father died when she was nine. She said herself she had to become an adult by age 10. She was cast in a movie at age 17 and essentially never left the industry. Yeah. Right? So she said, I've, I basically had no youth. I had no adolescence. I didn't expect you to go there,

[00:54:47] Michael: uh, and I think it is an outstanding point.

[00:54:51] How important is it to have a childhood? God, if

[00:54:56] Amit: I say it like that, I'm sure... I mean, I don't, she's probably one of very, very few cases that we can find that that essentially didn't have a childhood and had... an incredibly long, seemingly fulfilling life. And so if we look at her in isolation, it's kind of like maybe she dodged another bullet by not having, you know, the, the troubles of adolescence.

[00:55:19] The confusion of that. I think there was certainly trauma, no doubt, losing your father at age nine, but to take that into maturity rather than into a rebellion was perhaps a force of luck, a force of parenting or grandparenting. But that's something that's missing. You know, it seems to me like maybe you're missing those memories.

[00:55:36] You're missing this imaginary, this imaginary prom or this imaginary, like, you know, playing in the field with your friends.

[00:55:44] Michael: I think there's something bigger. I think you could be missing an inner

[00:55:46] Amit: child. Which is, which could explain why it's so hard to access her. Yeah. It's also makes you a great, actor.

[00:55:54] Michael: Yeah, it does. It does. But, but there is an inner child though. I don't

[00:55:58] Amit: know who or what it is. Sure, she still lived through these years. Right, right. And it comes out, a lot of her theater was very, very playful. If you look at the Sweeney Todd's and the Gypsies. She still has an inner child somewhere. Yeah.

[00:56:10] And I'm kind of like a, so what? I'm

[00:56:12] Michael: glad you brought it up. It doesn't for me outweigh the other obvious desirable qualities here. The longevity, the, the icon like status, the interesting life, the ability to like, feel good about. your work life, your family life, uh, you know, uh, over your accolades from peers, your relationships.

[00:56:32] I mean, I, there's, there's so much here that's so strong. But that is a very good one, and I'll, I'll have to

[00:56:38] Amit: sit with that. The other thing I would say was, is, is that lack of a distinct personality. And maybe that, that's the same question. Yeah. A lot of me, like, I, I don't want to be that flat. Yeah. Right?

[00:56:56] Yeah. I don't. She has a tremendous range in acting. But I personally don't want to be as flat as she was in interviews or as she presented herself. Yeah. That I wouldn't want in a life, I think, objectively. But objectively, I can also say. Screw that. As long as you are content and healthy for that long and you were surrounded by love of family and evidence of friendships and close connections for that long.

[00:57:29] Michael: And relevant for this long. I mean, I don't know how important that is, but like, she stayed in demand. Her entire

[00:57:36] Amit: career. Yeah, relevant and important. Yeah. Right, really like changing people's lives in the way that they were represented on television. Yeah. I think that's a huge deal. So you're

[00:57:46] Michael: a yes.

[00:57:46] Amit: You want your life answered?

[00:57:47] Did I jump in too quickly? No, not at

[00:57:49] Michael: all. I just want to confirm before I make one

[00:57:52] Amit: more point. Okay, yes, yeah. So I'm going to say it again, like how can I say no? To what she had and what she lived and all those things I listed off. So yes, I'm a, I want your life Angela Lansbury. I

[00:58:03] Michael: gotta say the things you're bringing up in this last stage of the conversation.

[00:58:09] I could see them festering for me a little bit. I'm a yes as well. I want your life, Angela Lansbury. But this question about childhood, flatness, I think that's a good way of describing her personality. I'm not even sure she would necessarily disagree with that. It is kind of flat, and it is kind of... a little bit.

[00:58:26] Um, I, I don't know, it's not varied enough in terms of like where to go, what you might do next. It's not quite experimental. I could see all of those things actually weighing heavy on me after we walk away from this conversation for now. Yes. I want your life,

[00:58:43] Amit: Angela Lansbury. Maybe we don't need to overthink it.

[00:58:47] Yeah, that actually did that. That's part of the lesson in itself. Yeah. I

[00:58:52] Michael: think that there's something to that. Amit, you are Angela Lansbury. You have Died, and you have ascended to the pearly gates and you're meeting Saint Peter, the universal proxy for the afterlife. You have an opportunity to make the pitch.

[00:59:10] What was your one contribution to the stream

[00:59:13] Amit: of life? Saint Peter, are you an angel? No, no. You're a saint. Uh, I, I am an angel. My name is, is, is Angela. Uh, see, that was a joke, and these little shits said I was flat. So, one contribution, huh? That's all you're giving me. So if I'm gonna go one, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this, and I'm gonna use you as an example.

[00:59:34] Saint Peter, do you see yourself represented? Do you see reflections of yourself, or do you think it's too much focused on people on living Earth? I know that. I know that feeling, and in my latest work, in the last character I created, Jessica Fletcher, in Murder, She Wrote, I broke ground in bringing a demographic of later age women onto the screen and it showed us that we are fun people.

[01:00:08] We're people that go around riding bikes. We can solve mysteries. We live happily without a romantic interest. Life is very fun for us. So I helped. bring out that idea. I helped those people not be held back by a stereotype. I helped them be seen for who they are and what they wanted to do. Let me in.

[01:00:35] Michael: Famous and Gravy listeners, before you leave, we need you. We need people to participate in our opening quiz where we reveal the dead celebrity. You can email us at hello at famous and gravy dot com. And if you're enjoying our show, please tell your friends. You can find us on Twitter, or X, whatever it's called these days.

[01:00:55] We are also now on threads. Our handle in both places is at Famous and Gravy. We have a newsletter you can sign up for on our website, famousandgravy. com Famous Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by the magnificent Jacob Weiss. Original theme music by Kevin Strang.

[01:01:14] Thank you so much for listening. See you next time.