Angela Lansbury was typecast as an older woman when she was still a girl under contract in MGM. She was only 21 when Louis B Mayer insisted she play an unhappily married woman of 35. Lansbury had her own real-life romantic misadventure to draw on when she created the character. The seeds of later roles of villainous women Kay Thorndyke (State of the Union)and the 'Red Queen', Mrs Shaw-Iselin, are here in Angela Lansbury's performance as Mabel Sabre.