Thursday, October 16, 2014

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:


Mrs. Iselin: I know you will never entirely comprehend this, Raymond, but you must believe I did not know it would be you. I served them. I fought for them. I'm on the point of winning for them the greatest foothold they would ever have in this country. And they paid me back by taking your soul away from you. I told them to build me an assassin. I wanted a killer from a world filled with killers and they chose you because they thought it would bind me closer to them. But now, we have come almost to the end. One last step. And then when I take power, they will be pulled down and ground into dirt for what they did to you. And what they did in so contemptuously underestimating me. 

Happy  89, Angela Lansbury!
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5 comments:

Bill Carter said...

You've picked her best scene in her best performance. She should have won the Oscar that year, for playing one of the all-time great movie monsters, but it went to Patty Duke for "The Miracle Worker" instead.

Saw her in "Sweeney Todd" at Kennedy Center in the late 70s. Awesome!

Anonymous said...

No, it wasn't Patty Duke, it was Lila Kedrova for Zorba the Greek that year. I saw her on Broadway in Blithe Spirit and took a pic of her afterwards. She's magnificent. The Minnesota Opera is presenting an opera of The Manchurian Candidate this Spring. It's been composed by Kevin Puts, who won the Pulitzer Prize a couple of years ago for Silent Night, which premiered at the MN Opera. I am so excited to see it! Next season, they're doing an opera of The Shining! Creepy!

Bill Carter said...

I just double checked to make sure, and verified that Patty Duke won the 1963 Best Supporting Actress Oscar, besting Lansbury's brilliant performance in "The Manchurian Candidate" in 1963.

You can verify it at http://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000003/1963

Lila Kedrova won for "Zorba" two years later, in 1965.

Anonymous said...

You are right. I keep getting the years mixed up with Agnes Moorehead who should have won for Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. Lansbury, should indeed have won, but Patty Duke is brilliant in Miracle Worker. Thanks for helping me remember.

Bill Carter said...

Thank YOU for that note about the Minnesota Opera. I wish I could see a performance--it sounds fascinating!