Murder, She Wrote

Actress Angela Lansbury, whose 75-year career encompassed triumphs on the big screen, in musical theater and on television, died on Tuesday. She was 96.

She reprised the role in a direct-to-video “Beauty” sequel and a video game. Lansbury’s indelible work in “The Manchurian Candidate” bolstered her somewhat dormant rep as one of Hollywood’s most versatile performers. She made memorable appearances in such ‘50s dramas as “The Long, Hot Summer” (1958) and “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.” During her pact at the studio, she was loaned out to Paramount for the melodrama “The Private Affairs of Bel Ami,” which reunited her with “Dorian Gray” director Arthur Lewis, and Cecil B. Her instant success in “Gaslight,” which won her a best supporting actress Golden Globe, led to her MGM contract. Potts in the animated smash “ After the onset of the Nazi Blitz, Lansbury’s mother moved her and her younger brothers to the U.S. Queen Elizabeth II appointed her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2014. Two years later, she took the title role in “Mame,” the musical adaptation (by Jerry Herman, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. In 1964, she appeared in Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ “Anyone Can Whistle.” The tuner was a quick flop, lasting only nine performances, but it would be the last time she would fail on the Great White Way. (It was a hit 1958 movie vehicle for Rosalind Russell.) Lansbury appeared in the long-running smash for nearly two years, taking just a two-week break, and she notched a Tony Award as best actress in a musical. In 1984 she stepped into a role originally offered to Jean Stapleton: the flinty crime-solving mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher on CBS’ “Murder, She Wrote.” The show became appointment TV for its fans on Sunday nights, and ran for 12 highly rated seasons.

Angela Lansbury, the scene-stealing British actor who kicked up her heels in the Broadway musicals "Mame" and "Gypsy" and solved endless murders as crime.

In 2000, Lansbury withdrew from a planned Broadway musical, “The Visit,” because she needed to help her husband recover from heart surgery. Potts in “Beauty and the Beast” and sang the title song. She was back on Broadway in 2012 in a revival of “The Best Man,” sharing a stage with James Earl Jones, John Larroquette, Candice Bergen, Eric McCormack, Michael McKean and Kerry Butler. “The only thing I ever had confidence in is my ability to perform,” she said. She was offered a sitcom with Charles Durning or “Murder, She Wrote.” The producers had wanted Jean Stapleton, who declined. She was just 19 when her first film, “Gaslight,” earned her an Oscar nomination, but MGM didn’t know what to do with the new contract player. In 2009 she collected her fifth Tony, for best featured actress in a revival of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” and in 2015 won an Olivier Award in the role. “Murder, She Wrote” and other television work brought her 18 Emmy nominations but she never won one. “Murder, She Wrote” stayed high in the ratings through its 11th year. For consolation, CBS contracted for two-hour movies of “Murder, She Wrote” and other specials starring Lansbury. “I had to lay down the law at one point and say ‘Look, I can’t do these shows in seven days; it will have to be eight days.'” She was a key person in welcoming me to the community.

By Elsa Maishman · Dame Angela Lansbury, who won international acclaim as the star of the US TV crime series Murder, She Wrote, has died aged 96. · The three-time Oscar nominee had a career spanning eight decades, across film, theatre and television.

Angela Lansbury was that artist." She earned Oscar nominations for her role as the maid in Gaslight, and as Sibyl in The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1945, and Laurence Harvey's manipulative mother in The Manchurian Candidate in 1962. The show made her one of the wealthiest women in the US at the time, with a fortune estimated at $100m. She was noticed by a Hollywood executive at a party in 1942, and given her first role as a maid in the 1944 film Gaslight. "The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles," the family said. Born in 1925, she was one of the last surviving stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.

Angela Lansbury, who enjoyed an eclectic, award-winning movie and stage career in addition to becoming America's favorite TV sleuth in "Murder, She Wrote," ...

Angela Lansbury, the irrepressible three-time Oscar nominee and five-time Tony Award winner who solved 12 seasons' worth of crimes as amateur sleuth Jessica ...

Potts in the animated Beauty and the Beast (1991). She participated in school plays at Hampstead School for Girls and studied for a year at drama school, passing with honors at the Royal Academy of Music. She then appeared in National Velvet (1944) with Elizabeth Taylor but spent much of the next several years stuck in small parts at the studio. The blue-eyed Lansbury attended the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York City and graduated in 1942. (Her father had died when she was 9; her half-sister stayed behind and married actor Peter Ustinov in 1940.) 16, 1925, in London to a timber-merchant father and an actress mother, a star of the English stage. “But the year 1983 rolled around and Broadway was not forthcoming, so I took a part in a miniseries, Gertrude Whitney in Little Gloria, Happy at Last [a dramatization of [Gloria Vanderbilt](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/gloria-vanderbilt-dead-fashion-icon-886196/)‘s childhood]. Lansbury then took a turn toward evil and was rewarded with her final Oscar nom for portraying Laurence Harvey’s manipulative mother in the Cold War classic The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Universal Television’s Murder, She Wrote ran from 1984-96 (plus four telefilms) and was a huge ratings hit on Sunday nights following 60 Minutes. Late in the series, Jessica spent time teaching criminology at a Manhattan university. (Her mother, West End actress Moyna MacGill, played a duchess in the film.) Lovett in the original 1979 production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd; and, in 2009, for portraying the clairvoyant Madame Arcati in a revival of the Noël Coward farce Blithe Spirit.

She also excelled as the world's most evil mother in the film “The Manchurian Candidate.”

Angela Lansbury, who enjoyed an eclectic, award-winning movie and stage career in addition to becoming America's favorite TV sleuth in "Murder, She Wrote," ...

Generations of children revered Lansbury for her Disney roles, first in the 1971 movie musical “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” and later as the voice of Mrs. After the series ended, Lansbury starred in several “Murder, She Wrote” TV movies. They stayed together until his death in 2003 and had two children, Anthony – who directed many episodes of “Murder, She Wrote” – and Deirdre. Lansbury also amassed 11 Emmy nominations for her role as Jessica Fletcher in “Murder, She Wrote,” but never won. Born in London, her mother, Moyna MacGill, was an actress, and father Edward Lansbury a politician. Not yet 20 years old, Lansbury garnered her first Oscar nomination for her movie debut, “Gaslight,” in 1944.