Beloved ‘Murder, She Wrote’ star Angela Lansbury dies at 96




CNN

Angela Lansbury, who enjoyed an eclectic and award-winning career in film and on stage in addition to becoming America’s favorite TV detective in “Murder, She Wrote,” has died, according to a statement from her family provided to NBC, including the parent company produced the long-running series. She was 96 years old.

“The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are saddened to announce that their mother passed away peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 a.m. today, Tuesday October 11, 2022, just five days before her 97th birthday,” her family said in a statement.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Lansbury for comment.

Not yet 20, Lansbury earned her first Oscar nomination for her film debut, ‘Gaslight’, in 1944. Her second came the following year for ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, and again in 1962. as a mother who betrays her son and her country in “The Manchurian Candidate”. (She received Golden Globes for the last two films.)

The actress accepted an honorary Oscar in 2013, to go along with the five Tony Awards she collected over a period of more than 40 years – starting with ‘Mame’ in 1966, and finally for a revival of the Christmas play Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” in 2009. Lansbury also amassed 11 Emmy nominations for her role as Jessica Fletcher in “Murder, She Wrote,” but never won.

Lansbury went from being an ingenue to playing more middle-aged roles virtually overnight. She was just 37, for example, when she played Laurence Harvey’s conniving mother in “Manchurian Candidate,” even though her co-star was only two years younger than her.

Born in London, her mother, Moyna MacGill, was an actress and her father Edward Lansbury a politician. He died when she was just nine years old, and soon after the start of World War II the family moved to the United States in 1940, settling in New York.

Lansbury studied acting before moving at her mother’s request to Los Angeles, where she worked briefly in a department store until she landed her breakthrough role as a young maid in ‘Gaslight,’ starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.

Other films include ‘National Velvet’ (playing Elizabeth Taylor’s sister), ‘The Harvey Girls’, ‘The Three Musketeers’, Danny Kaye’s comedy ‘The Court Jester’ and Elvis Presley’s Vehicle ‘ Blue Hawaii”.

Lansbury made his Broadway debut in 1957, later starring in iconic Tony-winning roles in “Mame,” “Gypsy,” and “Sweeney Todd.”

Generations of children revered Lansbury for her Disney roles, first in the 1971 musical ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ and then as the voice of Mrs. Potts in the animated ‘Beauty and the Beast’ , Oscar-nominated in 1991. She also had a small role in the 2018 sequel “Mary Poppins Returns.”

“Strangely enough, kids recognize my voice,” she told the Huffington Post in 2012. “They’ll hear me and say, ‘Mom, it’s Mrs. Potts!'”

After a short-lived marriage to actor Richard Cromwell, Lansbury married British actor Peter Shaw in 1949. They remained together until his death in 2003 and had two children, Anthony – who directed many episodes of “Murder, She Wrote” — and Deirdre. Shaw eventually became his manager and was instrumental in the deal that made them the producers of the series which premiered in 1984.

Lansbury achieved his greatest fame in his 60s for his starring role in “Murder, She Wrote” as a crime-solving mystery writer. Of all her roles, Lansbury said Jessica Fletcher was the most like her.

“I had a lot to say in that, and I didn’t want the character to be quirky,” she told The New York Times in 2009. “I wanted her to be real. I didn’t want to have putting on veneer 24 hours a day, which is what a television program sometimes looks like.

Despite the success of “Murder, She Wrote,” audiences grew older, and CBS angered Lansbury by moving the series to Thursday nights opposite NBC’s “Friends” in 1995, in what turned out to be the final season. of mystery.

“I’m devastated,” Lansbury told the Los Angeles Times, adding, “I’m really angry for all the people who watched us” on Sunday, when the show still got big ratings after “60 Minutes.”

After the series ended, Lansbury starred in several “Murder, She Wrote” TV movies. She continued to work into her 80s and 90s, including a 2017 miniseries version of “Little Women” and starring in a 2015 Great Performances production of “Driving Miss Daisy,” opposite James Earl Jones.

“I love this industry and I love being in it,” Lansbury said in a 1998 interview with the Archives of American Television, adding of “Murder’s” audience, “They loved it and they were loyal.”

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