'Beauty and the Beast' cast sing praises of Angela Lansbury 

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\'Beauty and the Beast\' cast sing praises of Angela Lansbury

British actress Angela Lansbury famously played a teapot in Disney\'s 1991 animation, "Beauty and the Beast". It wasn\'t the lead role, but she is the toast of the town at the 25th-anniversary party. 

Many of the film\'s surviving principals were there, including the Beauty, Belle - actress Paige O\'Hara - and the Beast - actor Robby Benson. But it was Lansbury who sent both her colleagues and the press photographers into a frenzy.

"I just saw Angela Lansbury out here. It was like old home week here, running into Robby (Benson), and I looked up everybody recently to see what they were doing, and everyone looks the same. We\'re all older, but it\'s a really wonderful reunion. And, of course, Angela Lansbury I have idolized my whole life. I\'m a Broadway actress, and she is one of the greatest ever," O\'Hara said.

Don Hahn was the sole producer of "Beauty". He recalls the casting discussions for the role of Mrs. Potts, a human trapped in the form of a teapot after a curse is placed on the prince making him a beast.

Lansbury said it didn\'t take much convincing, that she\'d loved the fairytale since childhood. 

"I could certainly understand the thinking that an English actress would know how to play a Cockney teapot. And, I don\'t know, I just said, \'Oh yes. Oh yes. This is great, you know.\' And I loved the song. The song was so beautiful," Lansbury said.

Co-written by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman, the song, "Beauty and the Beast", would become a standard, against the odds. Lansbury said the first demo she sang had a "rock" feel that wasn\'t for her.

"So the orchestra was there, and the singers were there, and Angela was late because her plane was delayed. And when she got there, we thought, \'Oh, we will just let the orchestra go. We will just do it another day,\' and I told her that. And she said, \'No, no. I\'m here. Hold the orchestra!\' So we held the orchestra for about two hours, and she shows up. Her plane was delayed. She got in. She walked in the booth and she said, \'O.K., let\'s go!\' and she sang it - \'Tale as Old as Time\' - and that\'s the one that\'s in the movie. That\'s the one that got the Oscar, and it\'s history," Hahn said.

"Beauty and the Beast" was the first animated film to surpass the $100-million mark at the box office in its first theatrical run. It was also the first feature-length animated film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. 

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