Actor Angela Lansbury, most famous for her role as Jessica Fletcher in the US television series “Murder, She Wrote” has died aged 96.
Lansbury’s other significant role was the voice of Mrs Potts in the 1991 Disney film “Beauty and the Beast”. The actor, whose 75-year career stretched across the big screen, musical theatre and television, died at her home in Los Angeles.
Nominated for three Oscars, she won seven Tony Awards and holds the record for total number of Emmy nominations for a female – twelve for her role on “Murder, She Wrote.”
Lansbury was born in London in 1925 to actor Moyna Macgill and politician, Edgar Lansbury. After losing her father at the age of nine, Lansbury moved to the U.S with her family, where she was educated at New York’s Feagin School of Drama and Radio.
Early Career
As a teenager, Lansbury was discovered by John Van Druten, a prominent playwright and screenwriter. Her first breakthrough occurred in 1944, when she played opposite Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in George Cukor’s “Gaslight.”
Her role as a conniving Cockney maid garnered her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress and won her a Golden Globe for best supporting actress.
After starring in John Frankenheimer’s Cold War thriller, “The Manchurian Candidate”, as the malevolent mother of brainwashed ex-serviceman Laurence Harvey, she continued her reign across Broadway and the big screen.
“Murder, She Wrote” catapulted Laundry to international success. The show ran for twelve seasons, from 1984 and 1996 and gave Lansbury four Golden Globe Awards.
In 2019, critic Tim Gray said of “Murder, She Wrote” that “the show relied on Lansbury’s intelligence, integrity and warmth, which no actress can fake.”
“That’s what audiences responded to; even though there were clever mystery plots, with a slew of guest stars every week, the series rested squarely on Lansbury’s shoulders.”
As the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in the animated Disney film “Beauty and the Beast,” she shared a Grammy Award nomination for the soundtrack as album of the year.
Final years
In 2013, Lansbury received an honorary Oscar, ten years after receiving the equivalent from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
In 2014, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In an interview in 2019 with US magazine “Parade”, she said she had no plans to retire.
“Yes, I do [think about it] on some days. I think, Oh, no, goodness gracious,” she said. “I can’t pull myself together to do this today. But I keep doing it. There’s going to come a point, where I’ll think, I’m folding up now. I’m putting that person away in the closet and I’m going to just live out my remaining years with the family.”
Angela Lansbury is survived by children Anthony and Deidre and stepson David, three grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and her brother, Edgar.