Off The Record
Murder, She Wrote Star Angela Lansbury Dies At 96
The three-time Oscar nominee, who won international acclaim as the star of the US TV crime series Murder She Wrote dies aged 96.
Born in 1925 in London, Dame Angela Lansbury was one of the last surviving stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. The Oscar nominations were for her role as the maid in Gaslight, Sibyl in The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1945 and Laurence Harvey’s manipulative mother in The Manchurian Candidate in 1962.
Just five days before she turned 97, her family said in a statement: “The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles.” Her cause of death has been said to be of natural causes.
She was married to the actor Richard Cromwell briefly, and later on to the British actor and producer Peter Shawn for 50 years until his death in 2003.
How it all started for Angela Lansbury
Angela moved to New York and attended the Feagin School of Dramatic Art.
She was spotted by a Hollywood executive at a party in 1942, and her first role was being a maid in the 1944 film Gaslight, which later on brought her the first Oscar nomination.
From Broadway, all the way to Hollywood, she had huge success on big and small screen.
But “THE” role for Angela was being Jessica Fletcher in the TV series Murder She Wrote which eventually made her a world famous star.
She started filming in 1984 and continued for 12 years of filming in nine seasons.
Back in the day she was one of the wealthiest women in the US, with a whooping fortune of $100M.
In 2013 when she was 88 she was given an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.
During the ceremony, fellow actor Geoffrey Rush praised her as the “living definition of range”.
She also got a star on the Hollywood walk of fame and lifetime achievement award from Bafta in 2002.
She was made a Dame in 2014 for services to drama, charitable work and philanthropy.
Her work on screen an off will never be forgotten
Tweets and posts about Angela will be all over our feed for the next couple of days.
Actor Josh Gad wrote on Twitter: “It is rare that one person can touch multiple generations, creating a breadth of work that defines decade after decade. Angela Lansbury was that artist.”
Harvey Fierstein added that Dame Angela was “everything”.
Actress Mia Farrow, who starred in Death on the Nile in 1978 alongside Angela, wrote that it was “an honour” to have worked with her.
She was an advocate to create better world. Her work to raise awareness and money for Aids in the 1980s and 90s, as well as headlining to raise money for important causes will never be forgotten.
People claimed the picture above was the most beautiful photo ever taken of Angela. The photographer never realized how good it was until people were amazed by the quality in the year it was taken.
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