Roseann M. Caputo <103510.1542@compuserve.com> asks: > What was it like working with Angela Landsbury? > Had you heard that too? > Would you work with her again? > Any chance she could do B5 or Crusade?
The improvements were instituted when David Moessinger was brought on as Executive Producer. He did a year of the show and then left when Angela was named exec. The improvements were already in place by then.
Re: Angela...I have to say I enjoyed working with her. She struck me as a woman of tremendous integrity and honesty, not to mention skill. As an example...when she took over as exec, there was one episode being directed by her son, who had been doing them here and there for about a year. As I watched the dailies, I found he had gotten the episode *completely* wrong and was, in my view, undercutting the whole episode.
I went out, very upset and angry, and confronted him in front of the whole crew. Suffice to say it's bad form (I was angry, it was stupid, I make no excuses) to do after a director in front of his crew in *any* event, even if you are a writer/producer but to go after the *son* of the *star and executive producer*?
I got back to the offices and everybody was just dead-white...they said, "You're going to be fired the second she hears about this." About an hour or two later, the phone rang, and she wanted to see me. I went to her office, and she asked, "What happened, and why did you do what you did?"
I explained the situation, why I was upset, and explained how the episode was being killed in the directing because he didn't understand a large part of it. She considered it for a moment...and finally nodded. "You did the right thing," she said, and that was the end of it.
That took a lot of guts and integrity on her part. She knew me well enough to know that I leave my ego at the door, and all that concerns me is doing what's best for the show, and the story. Sometimes, on some shows, that ain't enough. With her, it was. 'nuff said.
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