Angela Lansbury (1925-2022)

Angela Lansbury was a talented, British-born, American actress.who, in a career spanning 80 years, became a top Hollywood and Broadway star, but who captured her biggest audiences on television towards the end of her career, playing Jessica Fletcher in the long-running series 'Murder She Wrote'.

She was the winner of five competitive Tony Awards for her starring performances on the New York stage, from “Mame” in 1966 to “Blithe Spirit” in 2009, when she was 83

She also received an honorary Academy Award in 2013 and a Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2022. In addition, she was included in the Queen's New Year Honours List for 2014 as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Biography

Early Years

She was born Angela Brigid Lansbury on October 16, 1925 in central London into a well-to-do family. Her mother was Irish actress Moyna MacGill and her father the English politician Edgar Lansbury. Her paternal grandfather was the Labour Party leader George Lansbury, She had an older half-sister, Isolde, from her mother's previous marriage and two younger twin brothers.

Angela's father died when she was nine and the family moved to Hampstead where Angela went to South Hampstead High School from 1934 until 1939, Graduated from South Hampstead High School, in Hampstead, Northwest, London, England, in 1939, at only 13.During this period she became fascinated with movies and in 1940 began studying acting at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art in Kensington, west London. Her first appearance onstage was in the school's production of Maxwell Anderson's 'Mary of Scotland'.

America

When her grandfather died in 1940, Angela's mother took her young family away from wartime London to America where Angela continued her acting education, gaining a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing to study at the Feagin School of Drama and Radio, where she appeared in performances of William Congreve's The Way of the World and Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan. She graduated in March, 1942,and in August of that year she joined her mother who had moved to Hollywood in an attempt to rekindle her own movie career.

In 1944 Angela met the author John van Drulen who put her name forward for a role in the movie 'Gaslight' which he had co-scripted. As she was only 17 she had to be accompanied on set each day by a social worker. It was her big break. The movie, starring Ingrid Bergman, was critically acclaimed and Angela earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

She also signed a 5 year contract with MGM and, in the same year, was cast with Elizabeth Taylor in 'National Velvet'. The following year she received another Oscar nomination for her supporting performance in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. It was a heady start for a young actress.

Misused at MGM

MGM never realised the star quality they had under contract and usually cast Angela as an older woman, often thoroughly nasty. Many of the subsequent eleven films she made for MGM, are generally regarded as second rate and they did little to further her career. Exceptions were 'The Harvey Girls' in 1946, 'State of the Union” in 1948 and 'Samson and Delilah' in 1949.

Angela's dissatisfaction with MGM grew until in 1952, when her contract expired, she returned to the stage, joining the national touring productions of two stage plays, “Remains to Be Seen” and “Affairs of State.”

When Angela returned to the movies, it was as a freelance actress, but again she found herself typecast in maternal roles or as a nasty piece of work, or both. She played a husband-killer in 'Please Murder Me' in 1956 and her most critically admired screen performance came as Laurence Harvey’s evil mother in 'The Manchurian Candidate' in 1962 for which she received her third supporting actress Oscar nomination.

She continued to give excellent performances in character roles for the rest of her screen career in movies such as 'A Lawless Street' in 1955, 'The Court Jester' in 1956, The Long, Hot Summer' in 1958 and 'Blue Hawaii' with Elvis Presley in 1961.

She became dissatisfied, however, with the minor roles she was constantly offered, and this problem continued in the ensuing years in films such as 'In the Cool of the Day'in 1963, and 'The World of Henry Orient' and 'Dear Heart' in 1964. She appeared in films which were critically well received such as 'The Greatest Story Ever Told' in 1965, 'Death on the Nile' in 1978 and 'The Mirror Crack’d' in 1980 but by the mid 1960s she was starting to concentrate on media other than movies.

Theatrical Career

Angela made her debut on Broadway in'Hotel Paradiso' in 1957. She received good reviews and returned to Broadway in 1960 to appear in 'A Taste of Honey'. After a signal failure with 'Anyone Can Whistle' in 1964, she began to show a mastery of the medium and went on to her greatest theatrical triumph and her first Tony award with 'Mame' in 1966.

Mame
When Rosalind Russell declined to play Mame Dennis in the stage version of the1958 non-musical film adaptation, Angela actively sought the part, knowing it would be her breakthrough into starring roles. And so it proved.

It was her first starring role and she trained and prepared hard for the ten songs and dance routines which it entailed. After appearing in Philadelphia and then Boston, 'Mame' opened on Broadway in May 1966 and was warmly received by critics and public alike. Angela won a Tony Award for her performance.

Murder She Wrote
For all her stage success, Angela would capture the biggest audience of her career in 1984, when she was cast as the mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher on the CBS series “Murder, She Wrote.” It was widely believed that the series had little chance against more modern series like the action crime drama “Knight Rider” on NBC.

Instead, the show became a huge hit, the greatest success of Angela's life. Although she never won an Emmy for her brilliant portraysl, she did receive an astonishing 12 successive nominations.

Later Career

Angela won a second Tony for best actress playing Countess Aurelia in “Dear World,” in 1969. She then returned to Hollywood, where she played an aging German aristocrat in “Something for Everyone” (1970),and then a witch in the Disney movie “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” (1971).

Angela was a very busy actress. Over the next decade she worked mostly on the stage, in London and New York. She starred as 'Mama Rose' in a revival of “Gypsy,” which opened in London and won her a third Tony when it reached Broadway in 1974. She won yet another for her performance as Mrs. Lovett, the baker with a grisly source of meat for her pies, in' Mr. Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s 'Sweeney Todd' which opened in March 1979 and ran for 557 performances.

She did not forget her cinematic career and appeared in 'Death on the Nile' in 1978, 'The Mirror Crack’d' in 1980, and later in the the family comedies 'Nanny McPhee' in 2005, 'Mr. Popper’s Penguins' in 2011 and 'Mary Poppins Returns' in 2018.

Personal

Angela was married twice. Her first marriage in 1945, to actor Richard Cromwell lasted less than a year. In 1949, she married actor and producer Peter Shaw, and they remained married until his death in 2003. They had a son and a daughter.

In 1951, Angela became a naturalized United States citizen whilst retaining her British citizenship.

She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1994 for her services to drama. She was elevated to DBE (Dame Commander of Order of the British Empire) ten years latert for services to drama and for charitable and philanthropic services. She was invested by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in a ceremony at Windsor Castle on April 15, 2014.

In 2013, she received an honorary award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for creating “some of cinema’s most memorable characters” and “inspiring generations of actors.”

Angela Lansbury died on October 11, 2022, at her home in Los Angeles. She was cremated and her ashes given to her family.

Angela Lansbury Filmography