Bea Arthur’s former personal assistant will never forget the day she took him grocery shopping in Los Angeles. “It was me, Bea and Angela Lansbury,” Dan Watt tells Closer. “She didn’t tell me she was meeting Angela. I’m walking behind them and they’re just like catching up on their day and grabbing food. I’m standing behind them going, ‘Oh, please break into song in the aisle.’”
The close friendship between the stars of The Golden Girls and Murder, She Wrote began on the stage when they starred in the 1966 Broadway musical Mame. Angela played the bon vivant title character while Bea appeared as Vera Charles, her hard drinking best friend. “[Angela] was a class act and a real joy to work with,” Bea said. “When I first met her I thought I was meeting this patrician, classically trained actor, but she has a mouth like a longshoreman. No kidding. She loved telling dirty limericks.”
Taking her cue from the title of the song they sang together in Mame’s second act, Angela called Bea her “bosom buddy.” The women loved to share a laugh. “She’s told some of the most hilarious jokes I’ve ever heard,” Angela said of Bea. “She’s an original. There’s nobody in the world like her.”
Bea Arthur and Angela Lansbury Shared the Broadway Stage
Angela and Bea arrived on the Broadway stage from very different places. Born in London to an upper middle-class family, Angela called herself a “complete movie maniac” in her youth, longing to follow in her actress mother’s footsteps. She began her drama training shortly after emigrating to the United States during World War II. At 19, she received her first Oscar nomination for her role in 1944’s Gaslight.
Brooklyn-born, Maryland-raised Bea, meanwhile, finished high school and enlisted in the Marines, where she served as a typist and a truck dispatcher during World War II. After her honorable discharge, she took classes to become a medical technician before switching to drama.
They were rivals for the same role in Mame. Bea, whose then-husband Gene Saks was directing the show, auditioned. She ended up playing best friend Vera, which worked out well. Both she and Angela won Tony awards that year.
After their time together on Broadway ended, the pair remained friends. Both would find a next chapter on the small screen in the 1980s, but ironically, they never appeared on each other’s hit shows.
Perhaps they just preferred keep their long friendship out of the limelight. “We’re comfortable with each other. We always have been,” Angela said. “She became my greatest support, and I, hers.”
