March 9, 2010. Curtain call at A Little Night Music at the Walter Kerr.
An eager Angela Lansbury fan races to the edge of the stage with an enormous bouquet of red roses—at least two dozen, maybe three. As Angela enters to take her bow, he can be seen desperately signalling to her, trying to catch her eye, thrusting his roses out over the footlights. But he is House Right and she Stage Right. Even if she had seen him, to cross to accept his roses would throw her straight into the path of her co-star, Ms. Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is about to enter for her own bow.
Zeta-Jones enters, takes her bow, returns to the line for a company bow and then, spotting the desperation in this man's eyes, she breaks ranks to cross to fetch the roses and swiftly hands them over to Ms. Lansbury.
Because her bow was last, by the time she entered the stage, the man had stopped motioning quite so obviously in the direction of Angela Lansbury. So we can conclude one of the following:
A) Seeing the bouquet, Zeta-Jones assumed they must be intended for her co-star, who is, after all, the Broadway legend in this cast.
-or-
B) Seeing the roses, she thought they might possibly be intended for her since she is a world-famous movie star but recognizing the stature of her co-star she made a conscious choice to assume they must be for Angela.
Either way, one thing seems clear. This dame, Ms. Catherine Zeta-Jones, she's one class act.
