The recent death of Angela Lansbury reminded me of the first time I was in the great lady’s presence. Every year during the annual Tony Awards ceremony, a large squad of press professionals hunker down in rooms situated near the event’s location to report for media outlets all over the world.
Back in 1999, I was in a Tony Awards press room, covering the show for our weekly TV series, “Theater Talk.” That year the rooms were over a small French restaurant across the street from the Gershwin Theatre, where the awards ceremony was being held, because its normal venue, Radio City Music Hall, was under renovation. During the ceremony, new Tony recipients would walk across the street, usually accompanied by their publicists, to be interviewed. In between the winners’ appearances, other celebrities who were also participants in the broadcast appeared for interviews, as well.
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So at some point in the evening, Lansbury and Beatrice Arthur, who had just jointly presented Martin Short with the Best Lead Actor in a Musical Tony Award for his performance in “Little Me,” arrived together to be questioned by correspondents for TV, radio, and the just-burgeoning online media. Both elegantly dressed in long gowns, these Broadway goddesses carefully stepped up onto the little platform at the front of the small room.
A dazzled handful of us asked them questions, and then nothing. Crickets. Most in the room, packed with media reporters, seemed to not even look up from working on their computers or talking on their phones to pay attention to these two middle-aged women. I remember feeling embarrassed by my colleagues, too busy to give these distinguished performers more attention. Finally, after an awkward silence, the two stepped down off the platform and left.
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I had made my way over to the door of the room by then. Perhaps I was thinking of privately saying something complementary to them; I don’t remember. (Although we were to subsequently interview both on “Theater Talk,” I had not met either of them yet), but I did not actually say anything to them; instead, I just watched them. As the two left, passing right by me, Bea turned to Angela and said, “I told you they wouldn’t be interested in us.” Then they were gone.
Over the years, I have reflected on the irony of that moment. Arthur’s perception at that time seemed to have been correct. Indeed, this room of reporters had shown little interest in the two show business legends.
That year, neither the then 77-year-old Arthur nor the 73-year-old Lansbury had appeared on Broadway since 1981 and 1983 respectively (although they would both later make “comebacks” there). Arthur’s hit TV series “Maude” had ended in 1978 after six seasons, and her revered show “The Golden Girls” wrapped up in 1992 after seven. As for Dame Angela, her classic series, “Murder She Wrote” ended its run in 1996. She then had taken a hiatus from performing to care for her ailing husband, Peter Shaw. Her first project in two years, a made-for-TV movie called “The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax,” directed by her son, Anthony Shaw, had just been released 16 days before the 1999 Tony ceremony to little fanfare. Meanwhile, in 1999 Arthur had two acting jobs, a voiceover in a lesser-known TV series, “Emily of New Moon” and a small part in a short-lived series “Beggars and Choosers.”
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Neither woman’s career was as hot as it had once been, nor were they winners that night so the press in the Tony room didn’t have time for them.
Reading all the accolades for Dame Angela after she passed, and for years noticing the constant airing of the syndicated “Murder She Wrote,” as well as the cult-like popularity of the late Arthur’s “The Golden Girls,” I can’t help remembering this incident and reflecting on the fickleness of the press in ’99. Back then, even the now-revered Lansbury and Arthur had to take their lumps. That was, is, and shall always be show business.
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