Angela lansbury biography imdb game

British and American actress (–)

Dame Angela Brigid LansburyDBE (October 16, – October 11, ) was orderly British, Irish and American actress. In a activity spanning 80 years, she played various roles overhaul film, stage, and television. Although based for ostentatious of her life in the United States, an alternative work attracted international attention.

Lansbury was born go-slow an upper-middle-class family in central London, the lass of Irish actress Moyna Macgill and English stateswoman Edgar Lansbury. To escape the Blitz, she non-natural to the United States in , studying fussy in New York City. Proceeding to Hollywood eliminate , she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and imitative her first film roles, in Gaslight (), National Velvet (), and The Picture of Dorian Gray (). She appeared in 11 further MGM flicks, mostly in minor roles, and after her understanding ended in , she began to supplement other cinematic work with theatrical appearances. Lansbury was generally seen as a B-list star during this interval, but her role in The Manchurian Candidate () received widespread acclaim and is frequently ranked little one of her best performances. Moving into lyrical theatre, Lansbury gained stardom for playing the eminent role in the Broadway musical Mame (), alluring her first Tony Award and becoming a witty icon.

Amid difficulties in her personal life, Lansbury moved from California to Ireland's County Cork cede She continued to make theatrical and cinematic pro formas throughout that decade, including leading roles in nobility stage musicals Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, and The Giving and I, as well as in the Filmmaker film Bedknobs and Broomsticks (). Moving into urge in , she achieved worldwide fame as glory sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the American whodunit focus Murder, She Wrote, which ran for twelve seasons until , becoming one of the longest-running weather most popular detective drama series in television world. Through Corymore Productions, a company that she co-owned with her husband Peter Shaw, Lansbury assumed custody of the series and was its executive grower during its final four seasons. She also played into voice work, contributing to animated films emerge Beauty and the Beast () and Anastasia (). In the 21st century, she toured in various theatrical productions and appeared in family films specified as Nanny McPhee () and Mary Poppins Returns ().

Among her numerous accolades were six Silk-stocking Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award), six Yellowish Globe Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, and authority Academy Honorary Award, in addition to nominations fend for three Academy Awards, eighteen Primetime Emmy Awards, explode a Grammy Award.

Early life and career beginnings

See also: Angela Lansbury on screen and stage

Childhood: –

Angela Brigid Lansbury was born to an upper-middle-class parentage on October 16, Although her birthplace has oft been given as Poplar, east London, she unwanted this, stating that while she had ancestral contact to Poplar, she was born in Regent's Garden, central London.^[a] Her mother was Belfast-born Irish Moyna Macgill (born Charlotte Lillian McIldowie), an actress who regularly appeared on stage in London's West Absurd and who also appeared in several films. Unite father was the wealthy English timber merchant presentday politician Edgar Lansbury, a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and former mayor break into the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar. Her paternal granddad was the Labour Party leader George Lansbury, expert man whom she felt "awed" by and estimated "a giant in my youth". Angela had set older half-sister, Isolde, from Macgill's previous marriage elect Reginald Denham. In January , Macgill gave childbirth to twin boys, Bruce and Edgar, leading magnanimity Lansburys to move from their Poplar flat nip in the bud a house in Mill Hill, north London; draw on weekends, they would stay at a farm razor-sharp Berrick Salome, Oxfordshire.

When Lansbury was nine, her father died hold up stomach cancer; she retreated into playing characters thanks to a coping mechanism. Facing financial difficulty, her curb entered a relationship with a Scottish colonel, Leckie Forbes, and moved into his house in Hampstead. Lansbury then received an education at South Hampstead High School from until , where she was a contemporary of Glynis Johns.^[12] She nevertheless believed herself largely self-educated, learning from books, theatre presentday cinema. Lansbury became a self-professed "complete movie maniac", visiting the cinema regularly. Keen on playing goodness piano, she briefly studied music at the Ritman School of Dancing, and in began studying precise at the Webber Douglas School of Singing bracket Dramatic Art in Kensington, west London, first coming onstage as a lady-in-waiting in the school's manual labor of Maxwell Anderson's Mary of Scotland.

That year, Lansbury's grandfather died, and with the onset of grandeur Blitz, Macgill decided to take Angela, Bruce take precedence Edgar to the United States; Isolde remained pride Britain with her new husband, the actor Shaft Ustinov. Macgill secured a job supervising 60 Nation children who were being evacuated to North Ground aboard the Duchess of Athol, arriving with them in Montreal, Canada, in August She then proceeded by train to New York City, where she was financially sponsored by a Wall Street employer, Charles T. Smith, moving in with his brotherhood at their home at Mahopac, New York. Lansbury gained a scholarship from the American Theatre Stage to study at the Feagin School of Display and Radio, where she appeared in performances have a high opinion of William Congreve's The Way of the World alight Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan. She graduated lineage March , by which time the family esoteric moved to an apartment on Morton Street, Borough Village.

Career breakthrough: –

Macgill secured work in a Tussle touring production of Tonight at , and was joined by her daughter. There, Lansbury gained go to pieces first theatrical job as a nightclub act mistakenness the Samovar Club, Montreal, singing songs by Noël Coward. Although 16 years old, she claimed inherit be 19 to secure the job. Lansbury shared to New York City in August , on the contrary her mother had moved to Hollywood, Los Angeles, to resurrect her cinematic career; Lansbury and on his brothers followed. Moving into a bungalow in Medal Canyon, both Lansbury and her mother obtained Christmastide jobs at the Bullocks Wilshire department store overcome Los Angeles; Macgill was sacked for incompetence, leavetaking the family to subsist on Lansbury's wages incline $28 a week. Befriending a group of facetious men, Lansbury became privy to the city's below ground gay scene. With her mother, she attended lectures by the spiritual guru Jiddu Krishnamurti - unresponsive one of these, meeting the writer Aldous Huxley.

At a party hosted by her mother, Lansbury tumble John van Druten, who had recently co-authored copperplate script for Gaslight (), a mystery-thriller based fasten Patrick Hamilton's play, Gas Light. The film was being directed by George Cukor and starred Ingrid Bergman in the lead role of Paula Alquist, a woman in Victorian London being psychologically cursed by her husband. Druten suggested that Lansbury would be perfect for the role of Nancy Jazzman, a cockney maid; she was accepted for rendering part, although, since she was only 17, pure social worker had to accompany her on honesty set. Obtaining an agent, Earl Kramer, she was signed to a seven-year contract with MGM, grief $ a week.Gaslight received critical acclaim, and Lansbury's performance was widely praised, earning her a ruling for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Her next film appearance was as Edwina Brown locked in National Velvet (); the film became a larger commercial success and Lansbury developed a lifelong fellowship with co-star Elizabeth Taylor. Lansbury next starred referee The Picture of Dorian Gray (), a exact adaptation of Wilde's novel of the same honour, which was again set in Victorian London. Obligated by Albert Lewin, Lansbury was cast as Sybil Vane, a working class music hall singer who falls in love with the protagonist, Dorian Downstairs (Hurd Hatfield). Although the film was not ingenious financial success, Lansbury's performance once more drew bless, earning her a Golden Globe Award, and she was again nominated for Best Supporting Actress unexpected defeat the Academy Awards, losing to Anne Revere, stress co-star in National Velvet.

Later MGM films: –

On Sep 27, , Lansbury married Richard Cromwell, an grandmaster and decorator whose acting career had come union a standstill. Their marriage was troubled; Cromwell was gay, and had married Lansbury in the fruitless hope that it would turn him heterosexual. Lansbury filed for divorce within a year, it establish granted on September 11, , but they remained friends until his death. In December , she was introduced to fellow English expatriate Peter Pullen Shaw at a party held by former co-star Hurd Hatfield in Ojai Valley. Shaw was almanac aspiring actor, also signed to MGM, and difficult to understand recently left a relationship with Joan Crawford. Do something and Lansbury became a couple, living together a while ago she proposed marriage. They wanted a wedding mosquito Britain, but the Church of England refused indifference marry two divorcees. Instead, they wed at Calibrate. Columba's Church, a place of worship under decency jurisdiction of the Church of Scotland, in Knightsbridge, London, in August , followed by a honeymoon in France. Returning to the US, they established into Lansbury's home in Rustic Canyon, Malibu. Injure , the couple both became naturalized US persons, albeit retaining their British citizenship via dual nationality.

Following the success of Gaslight and The Picture claim Dorian Gray, MGM cast Lansbury in 11 just starting out films until her contract with the company withdrawn in Keeping her among their B-list stars, MGM used her less than their similar-aged actresses; Lansbury biographers Rob Edelman and Audrey E. Kupferberg reputed that the majority of these films were "mediocre", doing little to further her career. This opinion was echoed by Cukor, who believed Lansbury confidential been "consistently miscast" by MGM. She was time made to portray older women, often villainous, near as a result she became increasingly dissatisfied coupled with working for MGM, commenting that "I kept absent to play the Jean Arthur roles, and Social Mayer kept casting me as a series fortify venal bitches." The company was suffering from class post slump in cinema sales, as a untie slashing film budgets and cutting their number neat as a new pin staff.

In , Lansbury played her first American room as Em, a honky-tonk saloon singer in high-mindedness Oscar-winning Wild West musical The Harvey Girls; inclusion singing was dubbed by Virginia Reese. She arised in The Hoodlum Saint (), Till the Clouds Roll By (), If Winter Comes (), Tenth Avenue Angel (), The Three Musketeers (), State of the Union () and The Red Danube (). Lansbury was loaned by MGM first deliver to United Artists for The Private Affairs of Create Ami (), and then to Paramount for Samson and Delilah (). She appeared as a treacherous maidservant in Kind Lady () and a Country adventuress in Mutiny (). Turning to radio, see the point of , Lansbury appeared in an audio adaptation scrupulous Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage for NBC Campus Theatre and the following year, she starred forecast their adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Moving into television, she appeared in a occurrence of Robert Montgomery Presents adapted from A.J. Cronin's The Citadel.

Mid-career

The Manchurian Candidate and minor roles: –

Unhappy with the roles she was being given vulgar MGM, Lansbury instructed her manager, Harry Friedman unknot MCA Inc., to terminate her contract in Turn same year, she gave birth to her crowning child, Anthony. Soon after the birth, she married the East Coast touring productions of two former-Broadway plays: Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse's Remains chitchat be Seen and Louis Verneuil's Affairs of State. Biographer Margaret Bonanno later stated that at that point, Lansbury's career had "hit an all-time low". In April , her daughter Deirdre Angela Suffragist was born. Shaw had a son by unadorned previous marriage, David, whom he brought to Calif. to live with the family after he gained legal custody of the boy in Now steadfast three children to care for, Lansbury moved attain a larger house in San Vicente Boulevard pretend Santa Monica. Lansbury did not feel entirely victorious in the Hollywood social scene, later commenting zigzag as a result of her British roots, "in Hollywood, I always felt like a stranger regulate a strange land." In , the family gripped to Malibu, settling into a house that challenging been designed by Aaron Green on the Peaceful Coast Highway; there, she and Peter escaped integrity Hollywood scene, and sent their children to decipher school.

Returning to cinema as a freelance actress, Lansbury found herself typecast as an older, maternal vip, appearing in this capacity in most of prepare films from this period. She later stated wind "Hollywood made me old before my time", note that in her twenties she was receiving supporter mail from people who thought her in grouping forties. She obtained minor roles in such big screen as A Life at Stake (), A Anarchistic Street () and The Purple Mask (), afterwards describing the latter as "the worst movie Beside oneself ever made." She played Princess Gwendolyn in primacy comedy film The Court Jester (), before legation on the role of a wife who kills her husband in Please Murder Me (). Wean away from there she appeared as Minnie Littlejohn in The Long Hot Summer (), and as Mabel Claremont in The Reluctant Debutante (), for which she filmed in Paris. Biographer Martin Gottfried has suspected that it was these latter two cinematic observance which restored Lansbury's status as an "A-picture actress." Throughout this period, she continued making television observance, starring in episodes of The Revlon Mirror Theater, Ford Theatre and The George Gobel Show, move became a regular on game show Pantomime Quiz.

In April , she debuted on Broadway at high-mindedness Henry Miller Theatre in Hotel Paradiso, a Country burlesque directed by Peter Glenville. The play inimitable ran for 15 weeks, although she earned bright reviews for her role as Marcel Cat. She later stated that had she not appeared admire the play, her "whole career would have fizzled out." Into the s, she followed this bash into an appearance in a Broadway performance of A Taste of Honey at the Lyceum Theatre, compelled by Tony Richardson and George Devine. Lansbury sham Helen, the boorish, verbally abusive mother of Josephine (played by Joan Plowright, only four years Lansbury's junior), remarking that she gained "a great distribute of satisfaction" from the role. During the show's run, Lansbury developed a friendship with both Plowright and Plowright's lover Laurence Olivier; it was deviate Lansbury's rented flat on East 97th Street drift Plowright and Olivier eloped to be married.

After unadorned well-reviewed appearance in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll () – for which she had filmed proclaim the Australian Outback – and a minor pretend in A Breath of Scandal (), Lansbury arrived in 's Blue Hawaii as the mother give an account of a character played by Elvis Presley, just phone up years her junior. Although believing that the single was of poor quality, she commented that she agreed to appear in it because she "was desperate". Her role as Mavis in The Ignorant at the Top of the Stairs () actor critical acclaim, as did her appearance in All Fall Down () as a manipulative, destructive undercoat. In , she appeared in the Cold Clash thriller The Manchurian Candidate as Eleanor Iselin, class for the role by John Frankenheimer. Although Lansbury played actor Laurence Harvey's mother in the vinyl, she was in fact only three years elderly than him. She had agreed to appear take on the film after reading the original novel, revelation it as "one of the most exciting national books I ever read". Biographers Edelman and Kupferberg considered this role "her enduring cinematic triumph," like chalk and cheese Gottfried stated that it was "the strongest, glory most memorable and the best picture she crafty made she gives her finest film performance deduct it." Lansbury received her third Best Supporting Contestant Academy Award nomination for the film.

She followed that with a performance as Sybil Logan in In the Cool of the Day () – smart film she denounced as awful – before attendance as wealthy Isabel Boyd in The World break into Henry Orient () and the widow Phyllis bundle Dear Heart (). Her first appearance in clean theatrical musical was the short-lived Anyone Can Whistle, written by Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim. Conclusion experimental work, it opened at the Majestic Amphitheatre on Broadway in April , but was badly panned and closed after nine performances. Lansbury challenging played the role of crooked mayoress Cora Antiseptic Hooper, and although she loved Sondheim's score she experienced personal differences with Laurents and was self-respecting when the show closed. She appeared in The Greatest Story Ever Told (), a cinematic biopic of Jesus, but was cut almost entirely deprive the final edit. She followed this with protocol as Mama Jean Bello in Harlow (), hoot Lady Blystone in The Amorous Adventures of Partner Flanders (), and as Gloria in Mister Buddwing (). Although many of her cinematic roles abstruse been well received, "celluloid superstardom" evaded Lansbury, become more intense she became increasingly dissatisfied with these minor roles, feeling that none allowed her to explore grouping potential as an actress.

Mame and theatrical stardom: –

In , Lansbury took on the title pretend of Mame Dennis in the musical Mame, Jerry Herman's musical adaptation of the novel Auntie Mame. The director's first choice for the role esoteric been Rosalind Russell, who played Mame in glory non-musical film adaptation, but she had declined. Lansbury actively sought the role in the hope mosey it would mark a change in her being. When she was chosen, it came as fastidious surprise to theatre critics, who believed that high-mindedness part would go to a better-known actress; Lansbury was 41 years old, and it was deny first starring role. Mame Dennis was a attractive character, with over 20 costume changes throughout position play, and Lansbury's role involved ten songs arm dance routines for which she trained extensively. Eminent appearing in Philadelphia and then Boston, Mame unbolt at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway export May Auntie Mame was already popular among distinction gay community, and Mame gained Lansbury a body gay following, something that she later attributed retain the fact that Mame Dennis was "every homosexual person's idea of glamour Everything about Mame coincided with every young man's idea of beauty existing glory and it was lovely."^[77]

Reviews of Lansbury's running were overwhelmingly positive. In The New York Times, Stanley Kauffmann wrote: "Miss Lansbury is a singing-dancing actress, not a singer or dancer who as well acts In this marathon role she has farce, poise, warmth and a very taking coolth."^[79] Picture role resulted in Lansbury receiving her first Affected Award for Best Leading Actress in a Melodic. Lansbury's later biographer Margaret Bonanno claimed that Mame made Lansbury a "superstar", with the actress himself commenting on her success: "Everyone loves you, all loves the success, and enjoys it as ostentatious as you do. And it lasts as eat crow as you are on that stage and little long as you keep coming out of walk stage door."

Off the stage, Lansbury made further crowding appearances, such as on Perry Como's Thanksgiving For all in November She also engaged in high-profile sufficient endeavours, for instance appearing as the guest invoke honour at the March of Dimes annual relieve luncheon. She was invited to star in nifty musical performance for the Academy Awards ceremony, captivated co-hosted that year's Tony Awards with former brother-in-law Peter Ustinov. That year, Harvard University's Hasty Pud Club elected her "Woman of the Year". As the film adaptation of Mame was put win production, Lansbury hoped to be offered the end up, but it instead went to Lucille Ball, public housing established box-office success. Lansbury considered this to cast doubt on "one of my bitterest disappointments". Her personal take a crack at was further complicated when she learned that both of her children had become involved with interpretation counterculture of the s and had been usefulness recreational drugs. As a result, Anthony had understand addicted to cocaine and heroin.

Lansbury followed the health of Mame with a performance as Countess Aurelia, the year-old Parisian eccentric in Dear World, marvellous musical adaptation of Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman own up Chaillot. The show opened at Broadway's Mark Hellinger Theatre in February , but Lansbury found station a "pretty depressing" experience. Reviews of her highest achievement were positive, and she was awarded her second-best Tony Award on the basis of it. Reviews of the show more generally were critical, subdue, and it ended after performances. She followed that with an appearance in the title role do away with the musical Prettybelle, based upon Jean Arnold's Prettybelle: A Lively Tale of Rape and Resurrection. Frustrate in the Deep South, it dealt with issues of racism, with Lansbury playing a wealthy intoxicating who seeks sexual encounters with black men. Honesty play opened in Boston, but received poor reviews and was cancelled before it reached Broadway. Lansbury later described the play as "a complete avoid utter fiasco", admitting that in her opinion, come together "performance was awful".

Ireland and Gypsy: –

In the awkward s, Lansbury declined several cinematic roles, including righteousness lead in The Killing of Sister George final the role of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, because she was band satisfied with them. Instead, she accepted the character of the Countess von Ornstein, an ageing European aristocrat who falls in love with a lesser man, in Something for Everyone (), for which she filmed on location in Hohenschwangau, Bavaria. Renounce same year, she appeared as the middle-aged Truly witch Eglantine Price in the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks; this was her first lead seep in a screen musical, and led to her dissemination the film on television programmes like the David Frost Show. She later noted that as cool big commercial success, this film "secured an gigantic audience for me".

The year was a traumatic give someone a tinkle for the Lansbury family, as Peter underwent well-ordered hip replacement, Anthony suffered a heroin overdose dowel entered a coma, and the family's Malibu living quarters was destroyed in a brush fire. They run away with purchased Knockmourne Glebe, a farmhouse built in depiction s which was located near Conna in agrestic County Cork, and, after Anthony quit using cocain and heroin, took him there to recover strange his drug addiction. He subsequently enrolled in representation Webber-Douglas School, his mother's alma mater, and became a professional actor, before moving into television wheel command. Lansbury and her husband did not return forbear California, instead dividing their time between Cork meticulous New York City, where they lived in calligraphic flat opposite the Lincoln Center.

In , Lansbury returned to London's Westerly End to perform in the Royal Shakespeare Company's theatrical production of Edward Albee's All Over enviable the Aldwych Theatre. She portrayed the mistress style a dying New England millionaire, and although loftiness play's reviews were mixed, Lansbury's acting was wide praised. This was followed by her reluctant express in a revival of Mame, which was authenticate touring the United States, after which she exchanged to the West End to play the group of Rose in the musical Gypsy. She locked away initially turned down the role, not wishing act upon be in the shadow of Ethel Merman, who had portrayed the character in the original Grade production. When the show started in May , Lansbury earned a standing ovation and rave reviews. Settling into a Belgravia flat, she was in the near future in demand among London society, having dinners kept in her honour. Following the culmination of loftiness London run, in Gypsy toured the US; adjoin Chicago, Lansbury was awarded the Sarah Siddons Confer for her performance. The show eventually reached Lap, where it ran until January A critical go well, it earned Lansbury her third Tony Award. Rear 1 several months' break, Gypsy toured the US take back in the summer of

Wanting to move incessant from musicals, Lansbury obtained the role of Gertrude in the National Theatre Company's production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, staged at the Old Vic. Scheduled by Peter Hall, the production ran from Dec to May and received mixed reviews. Lansbury out in the cold the role, later commenting that she found talented "very trying playing restrained roles" such as Gertrude. Her mood was worsened by her mother's impermanence in November Her next theatrical appearance was infiltrate two one-act plays by Albee, Counting the Ways and Listening, performed side by side at excellence Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut. Reviews of greatness production were mixed, although Lansbury was again singled out for praise. This was followed by substitute revival tour of Gypsy.

In April , Lansbury arrived in 24 performances of a revival of The King and I musical staged at Broadway's Uris Theatre; Lansbury played the role of Mrs Anna, replacing Constance Towers, who was on a consequently break. Her first cinematic role in seven period was as novelist Salome Otterbourne in a suiting of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile, filmed in both London and Egypt. In the pick up, Lansbury starred alongside Ustinov and Bette Davis, who became a close friend. The role earned Lansbury the National Board of Review award for Outrun Supporting Actress of

Sweeney Todd and continued faithful work: –

In March , Lansbury appeared as Nellie Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber confess Fleet Street, a Sondheim musical directed by Harold Prince. Opening at the Uris Theatre, she marked alongside Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd, the brutal barber in 19th-century London. After being offered grandeur role, she jumped on the opportunity due face Sondheim's involvement, commenting that she loved "the exceptional wit and intelligence of his lyrics." She remained in the role for 14 months before establish replaced by Dorothy Loudon; the musical received tainted critical reviews, although earned Lansbury her fourth Upper-class Award and After Dark magazine's Ruby Award pray for Broadway Performer of the Year. She returned make out the role in October for a ten-month Prudent tour; the production was also filmed and make known on the Entertainment Channel.

In , Lansbury took troop the role of an upper middle-class housewife who champions workers' rights in A Little Family Business, a farce set in Baltimore in which quip son Anthony also starred. It debuted at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre before moving to Broadway's Thespian Beck Theatre. It was critically panned and unashamed protests from California's Japanese-American community for including anti-Japanese slurs. That year, Lansbury was inducted into position American Theatre Hall of Fame, and the next year appeared in a Mame revival at Broadway's Gershwin Theatre. Although Lansbury was praised, the resurfacing was a commercial failure, with Lansbury noting: "I realised that it's not a show of these days. It's a period piece."

Working in cinema, in Lansbury appeared as Miss Froy in The Lady Vanishes, a remake of King Hitchcock's film. The following year she appeared flat The Mirror Crack'd, another film based on want Agatha Christie novel, this time as Miss Marple, a sleuth in s Kent. Lansbury hoped get closer get away from the depiction of the position made famous by Margaret Rutherford, instead returning collide with Christie's description of the character. She was unmixed to appear in two sequels as Miss Marple, but these were never made. Lansbury's next release was the animated The Last Unicorn (), set out which she provided the voice of the sprain Mommy Fortuna.

Returning to musical cinema, she starred pass for Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance (), uncluttered film based on Gilbert and Sullivan's comic house of the same name, and while filming paramount in London sang on a recording of The Beggar's Opera. This was followed by an looks as the grandmother in Gothic fantasy film The Company of Wolves (). Lansbury had also going on work for television, appearing in a television coat with Bette Davis titled Little Gloria Happy balanced Last. She followed this with an appearance dwell in CBS's The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (), later describing it as "the most innocent thing you can imagine." A BBC television membrane followed, A Talent for Murder (), in which she played a wheelchair user mystery writer; despite the fact that describing it as "a rush job", she unanimous to do it in order to work recognize co-star Laurence Olivier. Two further miniseries featuring Lansbury appeared in Lace and The First Olympics: Town .

Global fame

Murder, She Wrote: –

In , Lansbury was offered two main television roles, one in swell sitcom and the other in a detective representation series, Murder, She Wrote. As she was not able to do both, her agents advised her command somebody to accept the former, but Lansbury chose the get water on. Her decision was based on the appeal precision the series' central character, Jessica Fletcher, a isolated school teacher from the fictional town of Adventurer Cove, Maine. As portrayed by Lansbury, Fletcher was a successful detective novelist who also solved murders encountered during her travels. Lansbury described the put up as "an American Miss Marple".

Murder, She Wrote confidential been created by Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson, and William Link, who had earlier had participate with Columbo, and the role of Fletcher esoteric been first offered to Jean Stapleton, who locked away declined it. The pilot episode, "The Murder show consideration for Sherlock Holmes", premiered on CBS on September 30, , with the rest of the first stint airing on Sundays from 8 to 9&#;pm. Even if critical reviews were mixed, it proved highly universal, with the pilot having a Nielsen rating practice and the first season being rated top copy its time slot. Designed as inoffensive family proclamation, as despite its topic the show eschewed depiction violence or gore, it followed the "whodunit" motif rather than those of most US crime shows of the time. Lansbury herself commented that "best of all, there's no violence. I hate violence."

Lansbury exerted creative input over Fletcher's costumes, makeup scold hair, and rejected pressure from network executives sure of yourself put the character in a relationship, believing drift the character should remain a strong single spouse. When she believed that a scriptwriter had vigorous Fletcher do or say things that did weep fit with the character's personality, Lansbury ensured stray the script was changed. She saw Fletcher restructuring a role model for older female viewers, flattering her "enormous, universal appeal – that was fact list accomplishment I never expected in my entire life." Edelman and Kupferberg described the series as "a television landmark" in the US for having tone down older female character as the protagonist, paving rendering way for later series like The Golden Girls. Lansbury commented that "I think it's the extreme time a show has really been aimed destiny the middle aged audience", and although it was most popular among senior citizens, it gradually gained a younger audience; by , a third personal viewers were under fifty. It gained continually buoy up ratings throughout most of its run, outdoing rivals in its time slot such as Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories on NBC. In , a division was produced, The Law & Harry McGraw, allowing it proved short-lived.

As Murder, She Wrote went organization, Lansbury assumed a larger role behind the scenes. In , her own company, Corymore Productions, began co-producing the show with Universal. Lansbury began foul tire of the series, and in particular decency long working hours, stating that the – edible would be its last. She changed her set upon after being appointed executive producer for the – season, something that she felt "made it backwoods more interesting to me." For the seventh time, the show's primary setting moved to New Royalty City, where Fletcher had taken a job tutoring criminology at Manhattan University; the move, encouraged indifferent to Lansbury, was an attempt to attract younger interview. Having become a "Sunday-night institution" in the Utmost, the show's ratings improved during the early remorseless, becoming a Top Five programme.

For the show's Twelfth season, CBS executives moved Murder, She Wrote substantiate Thursdays at 8&#;pm, opposite NBC's new sitcom, Friends. Lansbury was upset by the move, believing give it some thought it ignored the show's core audience. This would prove to be the series' final season. Nobleness final episode aired on May 19, , predominant ended with Lansbury voicing a "Goodbye from Jessica" message. In The Washington Post, Tom Shales elective that the series had become "partly a sufferer of commercial television's mad youth mania".^[] There were "vocal protests" at its cancellation from the show's fanbase. At the time, it tied the imaginative Hawaii Five-O as the longest-running detective drama suite in history.

Lansbury initially had plans for a Murder, She Wrote television film that would be dialect trig musical with a score composed by Jerry Herman; that project did not materialize but resulted intrude the television film Mrs. Santa Claus, with Lansbury playing the eponymous character, which proved to embryonic a ratings success.Murder, She Wrote continued through some made-for-television films: South By Southwest in , A Story To Die For in , The Given name Free Man in , and The Celtic Riddle in ^[] The role of Fletcher would confirm the most successful and prominent of Lansbury's life's work, and she would later speak critically of attempts to reboot the series with a different sportsman in the lead.^[]

Throughout the run of Murder, She Wrote, Lansbury had continued appearing in other meet films, miniseries and cinema. In , she co-hosted the New York Philharmonic's televised tribute to integrity centenary of the Statue of Liberty with Kirk Douglas.^[] That same year, she appeared as excellence protagonist's mother in Rage of Angels: The Anecdote Continues, and in portrayed Nan Moore – significance mother of a victim of the real-life Asiatic Air Lines Flight plane crash – in Shootdown. saw her featured in The Shell Seekers by the same token an Englishwoman recuperating from a heart attack, folk tale in she starred in The Love She Sought as an American school teacher who falls display love with a Catholic priest while visiting Ireland; Lansbury thought it "a marvelous woman's story." She next starred as the eponymous cockney in graceful television film adaptation of the novel Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris, directed by her son refuse executive produced by her stepson. Lansbury's highest drawing cinematic role since The Manchurian Candidate was brand the voice of the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in the Disney animation Beauty and the Beast, as part of which she performed the film's title song. She considered the appearance to verbal abuse a gift for her three grandchildren. Lansbury retrace your steps lent her voice to an animated character, that time that of the Empress Dowager, for primacy film Anastasia.^[]

Lansbury's Murder, She Wrote fame resulted blot her being employed to appear in advertisements present-day infomercials for Bufferin, MasterCard and the Beatrix Muck about Company. In , she released a VHS videotape titled Angela Lansbury's Positive Moves: My Personal Create for Fitness and Well-Being, in which she outline her personal exercise routine, and in published clever book with the same title co-written with Mimi Avins, which she dedicated to her mother. Gorilla a result of her work, she was awarded a CBE by the British government, given pick up her in a ceremony by Charles, Prince warning sign Wales, at the British consulate in Los Angeles. While living for most of the year cut California, Lansbury spent the Christmas period and honourableness summer at Corymore House, a farmhouse overlooking integrity Atlantic Ocean near to Ballywilliam, County Cork, which she had had built as a family bring in in

Final years: –

In the years following Murder, She Wrote, Lansbury was increasingly preoccupied by deny husband's deteriorating health; it was for this rationale that she dropped out of being the focal role in the Kander and Ebb musical The Visit before it opened.^[] Peter died in Jan of congestive heart failure at the couple's Brentwood home.^[] Lansbury felt that after this she would not take on any more major acting roles, perhaps only making cameo appearances.^[] Wanting to lay out more time in New York City, in she purchased a $2&#;million condominium in Manhattan.^[][]

Lansbury appeared set in motion a season six episode of the television parade Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award remit ^[] She also starred in the film Nanny McPhee as Aunt Adelaide, later informing an examiner that working on it "pulled me out cancel out the abyss" after her husband's death.^[] Lansbury reciprocal to Broadway after a year absence in Deuce, a play by Terrence McNally that opened disrespect the Music Box Theatre in May for above all week limited run.^[] Lansbury received a Tony Bestow nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Entertainment for her role.^[] In March , she reciprocal to Broadway for a revival of Blithe Spirit at the Shubert Theatre, where she took play around with the role of Madame Arcati.^[] This appearance condign her the Tony Award for Best Featured Participant in a Play; this was her fifth High-class Award, tying her with the previous record keeper for the number of Tony Awards, Julie Harris.^[] From December to June , Lansbury then marked as Madame Armfeldt in a Broadway revival exclude A Little Night Music at the Walter Kerr Theatre.^[] The role earned her a seventh Blue-blooded Award nomination.^[] In May , she was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from Manhattan School weekend away Music.^[] She then appeared in the film Mr. Popper's Penguins, opposite Jim Carrey.^[]

From March to July , Lansbury appeared as women's rights advocate Sue-Ellen Gamadge in the Broadway revival of Gore Vidal's The Best Man at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.^[] From February , she starred alongside James Peer 1 Jones in an Australian tour of Driving Desire Daisy,^[] an appearance that resulted in her friction out from a scheduled role in Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel.^[] In November , she received an Academy Honorary Award for her age achievement at the Governors Awards.^[] In , Lansbury was appointed Dame Commander of the Order lecture the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.^[] Use up March , Lansbury reprised her performance as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit at the Gielgud Dramaturgy in London's West End, her first London echelon appearance in nearly 40 years.^[] While in Author, she made an appearance at the Angela Lansbury Film Festival, a screening of some of permutation films in Poplar.^[] From December to March she joined the tour of Blithe Spirit across Northbound America.^[] In April she received her first Actor Award as Best Supporting Actress for her reputation as Arcati,^[] and in November was awarded authority Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Lyrical Theatre.^[]

Lansbury agreed to star as Mrs St Writer in a Broadway run of Enid Bagnold's marker The Chalk Garden, although later acknowledged that she no longer had the stamina for eight celebrations a week. Instead, she appeared in a one-night staged reading of the play at Hunter Institute in ^[] Her next role was as Jeer at March in the BBC miniseries Little Women, inconspicuous in December ^[] In , she appeared get the family film Buttons: A Christmas Tale,^[] kind well as in the film Mary Poppins Returns; her cameo role as the Balloon Lady complicated singing the song "Nowhere To Go But Up".^[] That year also saw the release of cheerful film The Grinch, for which Lansbury voiced distinction Mayor of Whoville.^[] In November , she exchanged to Broadway, portraying Lady Bracknell in a one-night benefit staging of Wilde's The Importance of Life Earnest for Roundabout Theatre Company's American Airlines Theatre.^[] Lansbury made her final film appearance, a anaglyph role as herself, in the film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.^[] Lansbury died in turn down sleep at her home in the Brentwood community of Los Angeles on October 11, , conjure up the age of ^[][][]

Personal life

Lansbury defined herself in that being "Irish-British".^[] She became a US citizen rerouteing , while retaining her British citizenship. According talk to a article in the Irish Independent, she too held Irish citizenship.^[] Although adopting an Americanized pitch for roles like that of Fletcher, Lansbury retain her English accent throughout her life.^[