Good morning, how’s everyone doing? Well I hope, I mentioned last week that it was going to start getting busy again for us, and I’m not joking when I say I didn’t think the rest of the week would be so eventful, let alone within a couple of hours after I posted last week, but it did as my dad had to get an emergency appointment at our doctors surgery as he was stuck in bed after being crippled for three days with so much pain that it actually made him cry (and my dad doesn’t cry easily, so it must’ve been bad), thankfully since his appointment, he’s feeling much better. As well as dealing with my dad, we were then out everyday over the weekend, my mum and I especially had to go to Leeds to get my dad one or two presents for his birthday next week, which even though it was busy, as we went on a Saturday of all days, it was still fun! And the rest of this week doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down as we have back-to-back appointments that are really important that we need to attend, so we can’t afford to miss them.

Speaking of not slowing down brings me nicely to this week’s post, and celebrating a remarkable woman who never stopped working up until the day she sadly passed away last year. I’m of course, if you didn’t read the title, talking about the wonderful and talented Angela Lansbury, one of the most enduring, charismatic, and talented actresses around,  so read on to find out more about the woman who brought the brilliant famous Murder-Mystery Novelist and Amateur Detective Jessica Fletcher to life!

Celebrating Angela Lansbury

Mini Biography:

Angela Brigid Lansbury was born on October 16, 1925, in the neighborhood of Poplar, located in the East End of London, England. Her mother, Belfast-born Moyna MacGill, was a stage actress as well, having worked with contemporaries like John Gielgud and Basil Rathbone. Her father, Edward Lansbury, was a noted politician whose father George was the founder of his country’s Labor Party. Lansbury’s father died when she was 9 years old, which would affect her for the rest of her life. For a time she lived in Ireland during her preadolescence, where both she and her sister attended acting school. In the midst of German air attacks during the London Blitz, Lansbury, her mother and two younger brothers fled the war and immigrated to the United States in 1940, settling in New York. In New York City, Lansbury received a scholarship to study drama at the Lucy Fagan school. Her mother took a job with a Canadian production and instructed Lansbury to move to Los Angeles, where the fledgling actress worked in a department store before landing her debut film role. She appeared in 1944’s Gaslight opposite Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Playing the housemaid Nancy, Lansbury held her own against established stars and earned an Academy Award nomination for Actress in a Supporting Role. Lansbury landed major roles early on in her career, including that of Elizabeth Taylor’s older sister in National Velvet (1944) and opposite Judy Garland and Cyd Charisse in The Harvey Girls (1946). Lansbury continued making films into the next decade, including The Manchurian Candidate (1963), which brought her a third Academy Award nomination for supporting actress. After appearing in Mister Buddwing (1966), she starred as a countess in the comedy Something for Everyone, opposite Michael York, and then in the partially-animated Disney movie musical Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), playing the witch Miss Price.

Lansbury alternated between film, television and the stage for years, finding success on the small screen by the mid-1980s. Beginning in 1984, she played sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the popular TV mystery series Murder, She Wrote. As the diplomatic, kind and clever Fletcher, Lansbury earned Emmy Award nominations in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series category every year from 1985 to 1996, eventually taking over production duties for the show as well. After the show ended, Lansbury appeared in television movies, including some Murder, She Wrote specials, and feature films. She has also made TV guest appearances. She voiced several animated characters as well for films including Beauty and the Beast (1991), in which she voiced Mrs. Potts and sang the title track “Beauty and the Beast” and “Be Our Guest” with Jerry Orbach, and Anastasia (1997). In addition to her screen work, Lansbury is regarded as one of the most iconic stage performers of all time on both sides of the pond. She made her Broadway debut in 1957 with the play Hotel Paradiso. A powerhouse vocalist, Lansbury landed the lead role as the titular character in the musical production Mame (1966), playing a grand free spirit who attempts to guide her nephew down a true-to-self path. In 2007, she returned to Broadway after more than two decades, performing in the show Deuce.

When she was 19, Lansbury was wed for a short time to fellow actor Richard Cromwell. He left the marriage several months after their wedding and it was later revealed that he was gay. Then in 1949, she married British actor Peter Shaw, who would go on to become her manager and launch a production company that would be heavily involved in Murder, She Wrote. The couple was together for more than five decades and had two children. Upon Shaw’s death in 2003, Lansbury entered a period of depression. She eventually recovered, in part crediting her theatrical work and actress Emma Thompson, who provided Lansbury with the role of evil Aunt Adelaide in 2005’s Nanny McPhee.

She had been an avid supporter of endless charities throughout her life, raising millions for AIDS research and the fight against domestic abuse. At one point, she raised more than £1million for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. In 1996, her acting career and her tireless efforts against AIDS were honored at an event for her. Lauren Bacall and Phyllis Newman gave warm speeches celebrating Angela’s talent, humanitarianism and endless iconic roles. She was given an award to which the actress gave a 10-minute speech where she told the audience to ‘never give up on the fight until the war is won. And we will win.’ Angela also worked with Abused Wives In Crisis, an organization that aims to educate people about domestic violence and provides support to victims. Sadly on 11th October 2022, it was announced that Dame Angela Lansbury had passed away peacefully in her sleep at her California home just 5 days shy of her 97th birthday, she is survived by her three children: stepson David Shaw; son Anthony Shaw; and daughter Deirdre Shaw. As well as her three grandchildren, Peter, Katherine and Ian, plus five great grandchildren and her brother, producer Edgar Lansbury.

• She, her mother Moyna MacGill and her twin younger brothers (Edgar Lansbury and Bruce Lansbury) were in the last boatload of family members evacuated from London to the United States during the Blitz.
• Lansbury’s first spark of interest in acting came at the age of nine after her father’s death from stomach cancer, as performing became an outlet for her grief. To help them both cope, her mother, Irish actress Moyna Macgill, travelled around doing stage work and ultimately secured Angela her first job in the entertainment industry: her very own nightclub act at the Samovar Club in Montreal where her mother was performing in Tonight at 8:30.
• Lansbury holds not one, not two, but three citizenships. Her passports include England (her place of birth), Ireland (her mother’s homeland) and the United States (her adopted country) as her homes.
• She attended ‘South Hampstead High School’ from 1934 to 1939, but was largely self-educated, learning from books, theatre, and cinema.
• Keen on playing the piano, she briefly studied music at the Ritman School of Dancing, and in 1940 began studying acting at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art in Kensington, West London, first appearing onstage as a lady-in-waiting in the school’s production of Maxwell Anderson’s Mary of Scotland.

• Before becoming a professional performer she went by her middle name Brigid. MGM wanted her to take the name Angela Marlowe but she refused.
• One of Lansbury’s most iconic roles was the animated teapot in 1991’s Beauty and the Beast. The tender housekeeper-turned-tea-brewer was very warmly received by audiences, but Angela didn’t do it for the Disney fanbase. She did it for her own personal fans, her grandchildren. After carefully deliberating over whether to voice the character, the actress decided it would be a great way to treat her three little grandkids at the time.
• The Oscar-winning song “Beauty and the Beast” almost wasn’t sung by Lansbury. As it is a slow, romantic ballad, something she was not used to singing, she suggested another character should sing it. The filmmakers asked her to try it just once, and she nailed the song in that one take, which is the one heard in the film.
• Angela Lansbury’s major films include ‘Gaslight,’ ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ and ‘The Manchurian Candidate.’ Her portrayal of ‘Miss Eglantine Price’ in ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ is one of her most popular roles.
• While filming Death on the Nile (1978), aboard ship, no one was allowed his or her own dressing room, so she shared a dressing room with Bette Davis and Maggie Smith.

• Although her marriage from Richard Cromwell didn’t last too long, she remained close friends with him, until his death in 1960.
• By her marriage to her 2nd husband, Peter Shaw, Lansbury gave birth to her 1st child at age 26, a son Anthony Pullen Shaw (on January 7, 1952), and to her 2nd child at age 27, a daughter Deirdre Angela Shaw (on April 26, 1953).
• Lansbury had three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren at the time of her death in 2022.
• Following the end of “Murder, She Wrote”, Lansbury returned to a career as a theatrical actress. She temporarily retired from the stage in 2001, to take care of her husband Peter Shaw, whose health was failing. Shaw died in 2003, from congestive heart failure home in California. Their marriage had lasted for 54 years (1949-2003).
• Upon Shaw’s death in 2003, Lansbury entered a period of depression. She eventually recovered, in part crediting her theatrical work and actress Emma Thompson, who provided Lansbury with the role of evil Aunt Adelaide in 2005’s Nanny McPhee.

• In 1984, she chose to appear in the detective television series ‘Murder, She Wrote,’ despite her agents advising otherwise. Her portrayal of protagonist ‘Jessica Fletcher’ became one of her most remembered roles, which she would play for the next 12 years.
• Lansbury won six Golden Globe Awards and a People’s Choice Awards for her television and film work. She never won an Emmy Award despite 18 nominations. As of 2009, she held the record for the most unsuccessful Emmy nominations by a performer.
• Her popularity from “Murder, She Wrote” made Lansbury a much-sought figure for advertisers. She appeared in advertisements and infomercials for Bufferin, MasterCard and the Beatrix Potter Company.
• The Tony Awards are always anticipated, especially because musical fans like to see who’s hosting. Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman have each hosted a handful of times each, but they don’t have anything on Angela Lansbury. The leading lady has served as hostess with the mostest five whole times over the course of her life.
• Alongside Norman Lloyd, William Daniels, Christopher Lee, Dick Van Dyke, Ernest Borgnine, Mickey Rooney, Estelle Parsons, Betty White, Edward Asner, Adam West, Marla Gibbs, William Shatner, Larry Hagman, Florence Henderson, Shirley Jones, Hal Linden, Connie Sawyer, and Alan Alda, Lansbury is one of the few actors in Hollywood who lived into their 80s and/or 90s without retiring from acting or stopped getting work.

• She was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 6623 Hollywood Boulevard; and for Television at 6259 Holywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
• She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1994 Birthday Honors, and subsequently was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2014 New Year Honors for services to drama, charitable work, and philanthropy.
• She was among the special guests to be invited to the Grand Opening of the first Disney Park in Europe – Disneyland Resort in Paris, formerly known as EuroDisney Resort, where she impressed her hand prints.
• Lansbury counted Golden Girls star Bea Arthur as one of her best friends. The pair first met during the 1966 stage production of Mame, in which they both starred, and Lansbury reportedly paid tribute to her BFF by giving her Murder, She Wrote character Jessica Fletcher the middle name “Beatrice,” after her.
• Lansbury was also a lifelong friend of Elizabeth Taylor (d. 2011) after the two met on the set of 1944’s National Velvet, in which she played Taylor’s older sister.

• Lansbury was an avid letter writer who wrote letters by hand and made copies of all of them. At Howard Gotlieb’s request, Lansbury’s papers are housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.
• Throughout her long life, she had 10 hobbies: housekeeping, spending time with her family, reading, dancing, riding, playing tennis, cooking, playing the piano, gardening and letter writing.
• She also supported various charities, particularly those combating domestic abuse and rehabilitating drug users. In the 1980s, she also supported charities combating HIV/AIDS.
• Angela Lansbury died on October 11, 2022, at age 96. Four months before she passed away, in June 2022, she received a special award for Lifetime Achievements at the 75th Tony Awards, but was unable to accept the award in person.
• Following the announcement of Lansbury’s death, many figures in the entertainment industry praised her on social media. The actor Jason Alexander called her “one of the most versatile, talented, graceful, kind, witty, wise, classy ladies” he had ever met. Actor Uzo Aduba called her an “icon of the stage”, while actor Josh Gad noted that it was rare that “one person can touch multiple generations, creating a breadth of work that defines decade after decade. Angela Lansbury was that artist”.

Angela Lansbury was a legendary actress who had a remarkable career spanning decades. With a wide range of talent and a dedication to her craft, Lansbury became an icon in the entertainment industry. From her breakthrough performance in “Gaslight” to her unforgettable portrayal of Jessica Fletcher in “Murder, She Wrote,” Lansbury captivated audiences with her versatility and magnetic presence. Throughout her career, Lansbury received numerous accolades, including multiple Tony Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and an honorary Academy Award. Her talent and contribution to the world of entertainment solidified her status as one of the most esteemed actresses of our time. Angela Lansbury’s impact on the entertainment industry will continue to be felt for generations to come. Her timeless performances, distinctive voice, and undeniable charm have made her a beloved figure in the hearts of fans around the world. Whether on the stage or on the screen, Lansbury’s talent and charisma were truly unmatched. An icon of the theatre, a legend of the screen and one of the greatest actors of our time. May she Rest In Peace.

Thank you for visiting my blog and reading today’s post, I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, and I shall see you next week.