Dame, and six-time Tony Award winner, Angela Lansbury passed away October 11, 2022, just days before her 97th birthday. Today, October 16, 2025, would have been her 100th birthday. To mark the occasion, here is a remembrance from her longtime assistant Tom Rhoads, who is also an actor and singer. Rhoads was Lansbury's assistant, and one of her closest friends, from 2009 until her death.

Sunday, February 1, 2009, was a cold and snowy day. I was not eager to go outside, but I had to work so off I went, little knowing my life was about to be changed forever. A recent graduate of the University of Michigan, where I majored in theatre and communications, I was a fairly new arrival in New York City and to get by, I’d taken a job with a company that hired actors to provide transportation and assistance to its high-end clients. As I walked into the office that morning I was told: “You are to pick up Angela Lansbury and take her to rehearsal and help with anything else she might need.”

When I heard “Angela Lansbury,” I asked him to repeat what he’d said to make sure I heard him correctly. I remember as a child seeing Murder She Wrote on TV and hearing her voice as Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast. The boss just smiled and nodded, then handed me a slip of paper with her address.

As I arrived at “Miss Lansbury’s” apartment, I was anxious and excited to meet her, wondering if she was everything I anticipated she would be. When she came down, we introduced ourselves, got into the car and headed to the rehearsal. She was doing Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit. The roads were bad due to the weather, and she was concerned because she hated to arrive late. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic and we made good progress. As we drove along, she started talking to me. Her first question was, “So, what is your ambition?”

Caught off guard, I said, “I’m an actor and singer.”

“I thought so,” she said as she smiled.

At the rehearsal studio, I asked if she needed me to do anything else while she was there. She said there was nothing she could think of but wanted to make sure she had my phone number so in case if she thought of anything, she could call me. And that’s how it all began.

Over the course of the next 13-plus years, many wonderful and exciting things occurred—far too many to go into. But there are some that are high on the list that I will share here. 

There was the time a little later in that first year, after she’d listened to a CD I’d made, she started giving me suggestions for songs I should sing at auditions. They included “Put on Your Sunday Clothes,” “If Ever I Would Leave You,” and “Everybody Says Don’t.” Sometimes she would sing the songs she was talking about. And, while we are on the subject of songs, frequently when we were headed to the theatre, she would just start humming or singing to herself. As I got to know her better, if I knew the song, I would start harmonizing with her and before I knew it, we were doing a “performance” and applauding ourselves afterward. It was not long until whenever she introduced me to anyone, she would say, “This is Tom, the young actor and singer I’m mentoring. You’re going to see his name in big lights one day.”

Once, when I was headed to an audition, she handed me something and I noticed she was a little misty-eyed. I looked at it and saw that it was a sterling silver pendant from Tiffany’s with the word “Angie” engraved on it. Someone had given it to her the opening night of Mame in 1966, and she said, “This is for you, and a reminder that as your friend and mentor, I’m always with you and you’re always in my thoughts…. Now go show them how great you are!” It was the first time she ever called me a friend. Little did I know, five years later she would surprise me again, at closing night for one of our shows, with another Tiffany pendant. This time, heart shaped with both our initials engraved to fit perfectly with the first one she gave me. She was, indeed, a great mentor and cheerleader and came to see me whenever I was performing, be it in a show, a concert or even a staged reading. Usually with an uplifting written note to follow. I still wear both pendants around my neck everyday as a reminder she is still with me.

Blithe Spirit was the first opening of a Broadway show I’d ever been involved in and it gave me an opportunity to see the reaction of the audience as it leapt to its feet cheering when Angela came out for her curtain call. It was a lot of fun and a great privilege to be along for the entire run. When the show closed in late July, I felt very sad as she was leaving town. So, I was greatly surprised and thrilled when later that summer, I got a call from her manager to tell me she’d had her agent put my name in her contract to ensure I would be working with her on a new production of A Little Night Music she’d agreed to do. It was set to open in the fall of 2009 and it also starred Catherine Zeta-Jones.

That put a smile on my face. 

Then, while Night Music was running, I made my NYC stage debut when I performed at a Drama League gala honoring Angela that spring. For a relative newbie in town, it was quite a buzz to be introduced that evening by Edie Falco, and to sing Jerry Herman’s “My Best Girl” with Frankie Michael and Jerry Lanning—the original older and younger Patricks in Mame. It was also incredible to be invited as one of her guests at the Italian Embassy in Washington when she was presented with the Signature Theatre’s first-ever Stephen Sondheim Award, which Stephen presented to her himself.

During the ensuing years, I was lucky to perform at a lot of events honoring her. The two that I remember most were a 2014 American Theater Wing gala when I was introduced by the amazing Christine Ebersole and sang a Jerry Herman medley of “My Best Girl” and “She was Beautiful.” I also sat at Angie’s table that night along with James Earl Jones, Hal Prince, and Glenn Close. The other time was, in marking her 90th birthday, the York Theatre Company gave her the Oscar Hammerstein Award and I sang “I Don’t Want to Know” from Dear World.

One thing I really enjoyed was when she was doing shows, I was what she called her “special assistant"—I was her prompt and would cue her during the performance from where I was seated offstage in front of a closed-circuit TV monitor with a headset and microphone. I watched every performance and it was my responsibility to know when she had gone up in her lines and needed a cue to get back on track—sometimes it was just one word.

Aside from being at the rehearsals, during that pre-opening period, I also went to her apartment to run lines with her, which not only helped her learn the role but also enabled me to get a sense of her rhythm and timing. It was very serious work, but we also had a lot of laughs. And afterwards, she served tea and biscuits and occasionally we walked in Central Park as she talked to me about life. 

When the time came and she was actually on stage performing, the huge challenge became trying to differentiate between when a pause was “acting,” or if she actually needed a word or line. It was intimate work and being close to her personally helped me do the job well. Looking back now, it’s fun to remember how, on any given night, if she came in and happened to say she was tired, I knew I had my work cut out for me. Occasionally she would come off stage, smile and say, “How did you know I needed that word? You are brilliant!” 

Of course, once in a while when I wasn’t quite so “brilliant” she might come off and say, “I was acting!” and give me a wink.

I’ll never forget what happened one scary night shortly after Blithe Spirit opened in Los Angeles, when her earpiece suddenly went dead in the middle of a scene. She knew it wasn’t working and I sat at the monitor watching helplessly as she forgot a line. I could see she was a bit rattled for a moment, but then she simply started improvising for the rest of scene, leaving the other actors groping around somewhat bewildered as they tried to follow her lead. They all got through it and when she came off stage and told the cast what had happened, she also made sure to come over to make sure I was okay and assure me she knew it wasn’t my fault.

Also, while we were doing Blithe Spirit in LA, Carol Burnett was in the audience one night and came backstage after the show. She had played the very funny and wicked Mrs. Hannigan in Annie, one of my favorite movies when I was a kid growing up in Michigan. I was excited to meet her and felt an instant connection as I blurted out to her that she still looked just like she did when she was doing Miss Hannigan. She laughed and said, “Oh Honey, thank Botox for that.” When she discovered I was cueing Angie, and how it was done, she seemed to realize it could help her keep working, too. She said to Angie, “I’m taking this young man with me."

Angie laughed and in a very stern, but fun, voice she said, “Oh no, you’re not!”

I stood listening for a while as they reminisced about earlier times. Afterward, as Carol was leaving, she wanted me to show her my backstage workstation and explain exactly how I fed Angie lines. As I explained everything, she thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread and wanted to know more and more about it, still joking that she might steal me away. 

Because so many members of the cast were from the U.K. and had no place to be Christmas Day, Angie invited all the “orphans” for Christmas dinner at her place and asked me to come early to exchange gifts and then help her prepare the traditional roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding for the 16 of us that were there.

One last memory about Blithe Spirit (and another one I’ll always remember) was the morning after the show opened in San Francisco to incredible rave reviews and she called me and wanted to sneak off for lunch at Fisherman's Wharf to celebrate. We found a place where the food turned out to be boring and the view of the bay was semi-fogged in. But we had a load of fun celebrating despite everything. As we sat trying to make out the outline of Alcatraz in the mist, she suddenly turned serious for a moment and told me that she wanted me to know that a lot of credit for her getting such great reviews was because I was doing my job so well and not missing a beat whenever she needed a cue. She said she knew what a big responsibility it was, and she wanted me to know how much she depended on me to keep her going. Her generosity touched me deeply.

On a personal front, there were times when we were together and she would look at me and out of the blue and start singing, “Ya either got it or you don’t.” She would punch me on the arm and say, “And baby, you got it.” I think it was because she could sense whenever I was feeling a little down about things. Especially one day after an audition for a part I wanted badly, I was at her place working and she sang the song and said, “You know, you and I are a special breed. You’re not a chorus boy, I wasn’t a chorus girl. We’re principals and it often takes longer for us to make a go of it. I know there is something bigger for you around the corner." 

Because she’d been through it all, she always knew exactly what I was feeling and needed to hear. She wanted me to never stop believing it was going to happen to me.

Another enjoyable part of it all was that because I was pretty handy with an iPad, she frequently asked me to shoot videos of her that could be played at events that she was unable to attend. I was always amazed that it usually only took a couple of takes. As it turned out, we shot them all over the place—Melbourne, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, and, of course, several in New York. They honored people like Steve Sondheim, James Earl Jones, Hal Prince, and several others. I still have them all and confess I watch them from time to time whenever I need an Angie fix.

In between everything else, there were moments like when she attended the party I was having at my place for a couple of friends to watch the 2017 Tony Awards. I ordered in pizza, but definitely served it on my best plates. 

There was the time while she was in Australia doing Driving Miss Daisy with James Earl Jones and I flew down to be with her. We had a lot of fun exploring some of the delights of the great Down Under. There were also terrific memories of bumming around London with her when she was there doing Blithe Spirit. When she’d gone over to do the show, she was Angela Lansbury. When she came back, she was Angela Lansbury, Dame of the British Empire, having been invested at Windsor Castle by Queen Elizabeth II. 

Then, there was the time she invited me to Ireland after I received my Postgraduate Certificate in Acting & Musical Theatre from London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). She was at her house in County Cork and wanted me to come to there to celebrate. The house was simple, but stunning with its thick white masonry walls and slate roof; it sat on cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. As I drove down the long sweeping curved driveway and pulled up in front of the house, she had obviously seen me coming and was standing outside the front door with a light blue apron on, bowl in hand mixing the batter for a batch of scones she intended to serve with afternoon tea. While I was there, at nearly 90, she drove me all over to see her favorite sites and eat at her favorite restaurants—when she wasn’t cooking our three meals at home herself. 

There was also the trip to LA for her 91st birthday. That night, her manager, Bob Callely, treated the three of us to dinner at Angela’s daughter’s restaurant. It was there, while we were waiting for dessert, that she took both of us by the hand and said we were two of her closest friends and that she was very grateful we were there. It was an emotional moment that brought tears to my eyes.

Later, when we got back to her house and were standing in her dining room looking at the scores of bouquets she’d received (which completely covered the large dining room table plus some of the side tables as well), she joked that the neighbors must be thinking she’d died because of all the flowers that had been delivered that day. After she read each card, she tucked it in under the vase of the flowers it had come with to make sure that when she wrote thank you notes, she could talk with assurance about what each person had sent.

A wonderful coincidence occurred in 2018, when I was signed to make my principal role debut in one of her last movies Buttons – A Christmas Tale, directed by Tim Janis. Curiously, I’d already been cast before they cast her. It was quite a surprise when we discovered we were doing the same movie and shooting at the same time. During the week I was filming in LA, she invited me to stay at her house and I even signed my first movie contract on her dining room table. The movie also starred Dick Van Dyke, Jane Seymour, Ioan Gruffudd, and was narrated by Robert Redford.

Then, in 2019, another amazing twist of fate happened when I made my Broadway debut as Algernon, with Angela playing the immortal Lady Bracknell, in Oscar Wilde’s very funny The Importance of Being Earnest, in what turned out to be her last appearance on Broadway. It was at the American Airlines Theatre and the cast included Daniel Davis, John Glover, Jayne Houdyshell, Simon Jones, Hamish Linklater, Rebecca Night, and Lily Rabe. It was directed by Michael Wilson.

Sadly, it was only a few days later that she fell and broke her leg. And while she did appear in a cameo in Rian Johnson’s film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (starring Daniel Craig) in 2021, she never appeared on a stage again.

Because she was mostly confined to home, to celebrate her 95th birthday, Bob and I thought it would be nice if I filmed us singing happy birthday to her on my iPad and emailed it to her. In the course of trying to do that, it occurred to us that it would be fun to get videoed birthday messages from other friends, family and coworkers, then string them together to send to her as a surprise.

Well, before it was done, we had videos featuring over 80 of her friends from all over the world. The question of how to edit it all together got so complicated production-wise that we were close to despair. Then, the universe provided the magic of Disney animation producer Don Hahn (of Beauty and the Beast fame) who eagerly joined in and put together an incredible 75-minute blockbuster of a birthday video for Angie. It included tributes from Emma Thompson, Hugh Jackman, Cameron Mackintosh, Stephen Sondheim, Glenn Close, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Carol Burnett, Christine Ebersole, Michael Feinstein, Len Cariou, Rob Marshall, Harvey Fierstein, Senator Patrick Leahy, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Barry Humphries of Dame Edna fame—as well as her children, their husbands and wives, grand and great grand-children. Some of her Irish neighbors even got in a boat and filmed their message while showing Angie the view of her County Cork house from the sea. There could have been many more, but we simply ran out of time.

The video also included a very special song written for the occasion by lyricist Tim Rice and composer Alan Menken, called “Angela’s Sonnet,” which I had the privilege of being asked to sing. Because Tim and Alan’s song was so extraordinary and unique, the following year, to mark Angie’s 96th birthday and to try to raise money for the Actors Fund (now the Entertainment Community Fund), a solo video of me singing “Angela’s Sonnet” was released on the Playbill website where it was introduced by Kristen Chenoweth and could be seen worldwide. Happily, it can still be seen on YouTube.

There are so many more wonderful moments, and just too many to include here. So I will stop and simply say that between the time she fell in late November 2019 and the day she passed on October 11, 2022, just five days short of her 97th birthday, I was able to go to Los Angeles a number of times to spend Easter or celebrate her birthday. She had always seemed eternal to me, so it was difficult to see how things changed from visit to visit. 

And then it was over.

As she wished, her funeral was private and very small.

Now, not many days ever go by that I do not think of her with enormous love mixed with a sense of great sadness and loss. She told me once that when she was no longer here, she would still be guiding and watching over me. She would have been 100 on October 16, 2025, so it has been three years since she exited life’s big stage. However, I often get an Angie-wink—like when I turn on the radio and there she is singing “We Need a Little Christmas,” or randomly turn on the TV and Murder, She Wrote is on. So with that, and in many other ways, I still feel her spirit still leading me forward.

So, thank you dear Angie, for being my friend and my mentor.

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Celebrating Angela Lansbury's Career on Broadway

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