Angela Lansbury, Boyd Gaines, and James Earl Jones in 'Driving Miss Daisy'

I'll watch it if it gets decent reviews.

Angie just keeps working. Film debut in 1944 (marvelous Gaslight) , stage debut in 1957.

Yes, R2.

Angela's 90th Birthday is coming up in October.

I found a review, R1:

“Driving Miss Daisy” a well done play captured for posterity by PBS Great Performances

Great actors- terrible play-like " The Help" - white people love see other white people being racist- it takes the spotlight off them and makes their " soft bigotry " look charming. " Oh Lloyd thank God we are like that anymore, and tell Jesus that he isn't watering my plants right!"

R5 is right. It is a terrible, maudlin play.

Miss Daisy, in my life before this I was like a Dark InVader. And like then, I'm your Daddy.

Will she have to wear an earpiece to be prompted?

Now is as good a time as any to post the hilarious clip of Phylicia Rashad waxing pretentiously about "theater" while James Earl Jones looks on in apparent befuddlement.

This cracks me up every time.

OMG R9! It's Palinesque alphabet soup!

R10 how do you mean?

Is there any nudity?

r11, r10 means that Rashad is just stringing buzzwords together in a way that has no meaning, like Sarah Palin does when she has to talk about national politics.

R13 but she got massive applause at the end.

I love James Earl Jones, it's good to see he's keeping busy well into his eighties.

and Palin got a VP nom. What IS your point, R14?

Why does she still live in Manhattan Plaza if she gets work like this? Maybe Angie likes being close to the people.

R17 what do you mean? What's wrong with the Manhattan Plaza?

I thought it was for people who were poor. Why is Angie living there?

I saw them perform in Melbourne where this was recorded while I was on vacation in Australia. It was worthwhile to see two great elderly actors performing on stage before they kicked the bucket. It felt weird though watching with an Australian audience, wondering if they understood what was going on.

Thanks for the reminder, OP. Yeah, this is a sappy, inconsequential work, but I'm looking forward to seeing Lansbury and Jones together nonetheless. Saw Lansbury in the national tour of Blithe Spirit earlier this year. Her performance as Madame Arcati was astonishing. Lots of impressive British talent in that cast and yet she owned the evening. She didn't miss a beat and had such a wonderful sense of comedic timing.

Wasn't there some talk of a Broadway (or Off Broadway) production of The Chalk Garden with Lansbury? Given how vital and sharp she remains, would love for to have at least one more Broadway outing.

I think Lansbury won her 5th Tony for Blithe Spirit a few years ago, correct, R21?

[quote]white people love see other white people being racist- it takes the spotlight off them and makes their " soft bigotry " look charming.

Just like your bigoted and ignorant over-generalization about "white people". Daisy Werthan may have been white, but she was also Jewish. Jews in the conservative Xtian South were despised almost as much as Blacks and in some cases, far more. The movie very briefly showed Southern bigotry against Jews.

True, R23.

And wasn't there a Jewish man who the KKK killed along with several black men?

Thank heavens they filmed this - I was really afraid Mr. Popper's Penguins is going to turn out to be Angela's last movie.

Why haven't they turned this into a musical?

R26 - the creative team is still figuring out what rhymes with "Piggly Wiggly" and which doesn't start with the letter "n".

R22 - she sure did. That was such a great moment, too. The crowd at Radio City went nuts for Dame Angie. She also won her (first?) Olivier Award in London this year for playing the same role in London's West End in 2014.

Julie Harris, who passed away last year, is the only other person to have won 5 Tonys.

Yup, though Audra has now surpassed them both with 6 wins. Would be fun to see Lansbury notch up a 6th win - and well into her 90s, too.

I didn't know Audra had won that many, R29. When did that happen? I guess I'm not up on the latest numbers.

The play is second rate but the acting was first-rate.

r9, this one is just as funny in its befuddlement.

I did the movie version

It's online.

The play may be slight, but it's not like there's a wealth of roles out there for an actress in her late 80's.

[quote]Yup, though Audra has now surpassed them both with 6 wins.

I think Harris still has the edge, since all of her 5 wins were in Lead Actress (I AM A CAMERA, THE LARK, FORTY CARATS, THE LAST OF MRS. LINCOLN, THE BELLE OF AMHERST).

Lansbury has four Lead (MAME, DEAR WORLD, GYPSY, SWEENEY TODD) and one Supporting (BLITHE SPIRIT).

McDonald has two Lead (PORGY & BESS, LADY DAY) and four Supporting (CAROUSEL, MASTER CLASS, RAGTIME, A RAISIN IN THE SUN).

It's much easier to win in Supporting.

Well, you still have to beat the same number of competitors in your category, R36.

Anyway, Angela also has 3 Oscar nominations, which is something that none of those others have.

[quote]Well, you still have to beat the same number of competitors in your category, [R36].

Yes, but Supporting is seen as "lesser" category, like at the Oscars and Emmys. You are judged differently. In Lead, you really have to impress.

That is supposition, R38.

Sometimes Lead categories are easier to win than Supporting.

Supporting is often for talented, veteran performers whereas Lead is given to newer, attractive people whom the industry wants to give a boost to.

Boyd Gaines was dreamy in the early 80s.

R36 what a racist thing to say. And to justify it by implying that a Tony in the supporting parts are easy to get is insult to all those who have won a Tony in that category, including Angela Lansbury.

It's amazing that Angela never won an Emmy award.

R30 - I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but, yeah, Audra won her record 6th Tony last year. That's why she was a sobbing mess during her acceptance and why the crowd roared when she won.

R42 - I adore Lansbury, but I don't find it that surprising. Even for the cheesy tv of the 80s, Murder She Wrote was a bit ridiculous. I mean, let's face it. Jessica Fletcher killed all those people. Although I know that in her younger days she got a bit tired of playing villainesses, I'd love to see her get a small, but pivotal role in a prestige cable drama on HBO, AMC or FX in which she plays... I don't know... an evil matriarch of a crime family. That would be a nice cap to her career. Especially since it seems unlikely we'll see her cast in a theatrical film again. Besides which, there's much better writing happening on tv now anyway.

R43, it may just have been a case of bad luck and never getting nominated in the right year.

Remember that Peter O'Toole was nominated a record Eight Times for an Oscar and never won.

So even great actors sometimes go a whole career without winning a particular award.

R41 what was racist about what I wrote? Just because Audra just happens to be black? I would've said the same thing about a white performer with 4 Featured and 2 Lead wins, as well. I even said that Harris even has the edge with Angela, even though they both technically have 5. But Harris' are all Lead and Angela has 4 Lead and 1 Featured.

It's tiresome how people throw the racist card just because you criticize a black person. Plus, I wasn't even criticizing her. I will say, though, that Audra trumps both Harris and Angela by winning in every acting category possible, twice in the latter two: Lead Actress in a Play, Lead Actress in a Musical, Featured Actress in a Play, Featured Actress in a Musical.

Harris won all her 5 in Lead Actress in a Play and Angela won her first four in Lead Actress in a Musical and her fifth in Featured Actress in a Play.

Why do the Tonys call it 'Featured' instead of 'Supporting'?

R46 I'm guessing because Featured Roles are not necessarily Supporting. You get put in Featured or Lead category depending on your billing. If your name is above the title, you're automatically a Lead, regardless of the size of your part. This is why Yul Brynner won for Featured Actor for THE KING AND despite being the male lead. But Gertrude Lawrence was the only name on the marquee and above the title because she was the star.

But actors/productions can petition to be put in a specific category, and the Committee has the last say. Donna McKechnie was nominated and won for Lead Actress in a Musial for A CHORUS LINE, but none of the actors had their names above the title and her part wasn't that big, anyway. In fact, Morales has more songs than does Cassie (including the two best known "Nothing" and "What I Did for Love"), but Priscilla Lopez was put in Featured.

[quote]In fact, Morales has more songs than does Cassie (including the two best known "Nothing" and "What I Did for Love"), but Priscilla Lopez was put in Featured.

Cassie has the solo spot "Music and the Mirror" where nobody else is on stage. "Nothing" and "What I Did For Love" have support from the other cast members either in background singing or dancing.

I assume that ACL didn't put Robert LuPone into Best Actor because the character is a disembodied voice for most of the show. That year George Rose won Best Actor for playing Alfred Doolittle in a revival of My Fair Lady, even though the character of Doolittle can in no way be considered a leading role.

So in short, the Tony Committee has always made it up as they go along.

It's amazing to me that Lansbury will be 90 this October. My sister's baby is due in September. To think that when Lansbury was born in 1925, a 90-year-old then was born in 1835 -- 26 years before the start of the Civil War, 1 year before the Alamo, and four years before the invention of Daguerreotype photography.

It's impressive to get to 90, but of course we have several even older actresses out there.

Maureen O'Hara turns 95 next month.

And Olivia De Havilland turned 99 last month.

[quote] Jessica Fletcher killed all those people

R43 That's an interesting theory.