DEATH OF ANGELA LANSBURY. British actress Angela Lansbury has died aged 96. From Arabesque to the Apprentice witch, a look back at her greatest roles.
[Updated Oct 12, 2022 9:34 AM] An icon of the small and large screen has left us. Angela Lansbury, British actress, died on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, at the age of 96. “She died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Los Angeles,” her family told American media, “five days before her 97th birthday.” Angela Lansbury was the star of the series Arabesque, broadcast in the 1980s and 1990s. She played Jessica Fletcher, author of detective novels and investigators. Thanks to this role, she won four Golden Globes.
But not only ! She was nominated for an Oscar three times during her film career, before receiving an honorary Oscar in 2013. Among her greatest roles are The Picture of Dorian Gray (for which she won the Golden Globe of the Best Supporting Actress), The Apprentice Witch and Death on the Nile. In the Agatha Christie adaptations, she also played detective Miss Marple in the film The Mirror Shattered. Young English speakers have also heard her voice in animated films, since she doubled Madame Samovar in La Belle et la Belle but also the Empress Marie in Anastasia.
Angela Lansbury’s biggest role remains that of Jessica Fletcher, which she played in the series Arabesque (Murder, she wrote in the original version). The actress played this author of detective novels but also an investigator in her spare time during her TV broadcast from 1984 to 1996. The series was a real success and won numerous awards. For this role, Angela Lansbury won four Golden Globes for best actress in a drama series in 1985, 1987, 1990 and 1992.
Angela Lansbury was born on October 16, 1925 in London and died on October 11, 2022, at the age of 96. Famous for her role as Jessica Fletcher in the television series Arabesque, she made her film debut in 1944 in George Cukor’s Haunting. She went on to films and awards in parallel with her musicals on Broadway until 1984, when she then turned more to the small screen. In 1991, she worked with Disney studios by lending her voice to the teapot in Beauty and the Beast. She returned to our screens in the 2000s in Nanny McPhee by Kirk Jones.
Angela Brigid Lansbury was born on October 16, 1925 in London. Her mother, Moyna MacGill, was a theater actress and her father, Edgar Lansbury, was a lumber merchant. At only 9 years old, his father died of cancer. During the Second World War, Angela Lansbury fled the German bombardments on London with her mother and her twin brothers. The family arrives in the United States. Arriving in New York, she studied at the Feagin School of Drama and Radio. After traveling across the country, her mother finds her a job in a shop by her side in Los Angeles.
In 1944, Angela Lansbury made her debut in the powerful American film and television company, Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), with a role in the film Haunting and signed a seven-year contract. Very quickly, the success arrives, she is nominated twice for the Oscars as best actress in a supporting role. Thanks to these nominations, she played in many big production films and was spotted by Broadway producers in 1957. Angela Lansbury also appeared in musicals.
In 1984, her acting career took off. She plays the role of a writer and detective, Jessica Fletcher in the television series, Arabesque, until 1996. A real success in England, her arrival in France is very popular. She appears in an episode of the Magnum series. She also plays Miss Marple in the episode The Mirror Shattered and Salome Otterbourne in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.
Angela Lansbury returned to the big screen in the 2000s, in Kirk Jones’ film Nanny McPhee, alongside Emma Thompson and Colin Firth. She then plays in the movie Mr. Popper and his penguins with Jim Carrey. On television, it is found in the series New York, special unit. She is also making her comeback on Broadway in Deuce and A Little Night Music. In 2018, the actress is showing two big productions: The return of Mary Poppins and Buttons, where she turns alongside Dick Van Dyke.
In 1971, Angela Lansbury collaborated for the first time with Disney studios, in The Apprentice Witch, where she played the role of a weak witch who tries to save her country from the German invasion. In the early 90s, the actress worked again with Mickey Studios, lending her voice to the teapot in Beauty and the Beast, and continued this partnership for three decades. In this cartoon, she sings the song Eternal Story which is a great success and is crowned at the Oscars, at the Golden Globes and at the Grammy Awards as the best movie song.
In 1945 Angela Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell. The couple separated a year later. In 1948, she met Peter Shaw on a film set. The two actors from the American company MGM married on August 12, 1949. The couple had two children, Anthony, born in 1952 and Deirdre, born the following year. Peter Shaw died in 2003.
