In Memory Of Dame Angela Lansbury

Image Courtesy of Variety

By John Maggio

On Tuesday, October 11, 2022, beloved actress Dame Angela Lansbury died in her Los Angeles home. Dame Angela was known for her decades-long career in film, television, and stage. 

Born in London on October 16, 1925, to a middle-class family, Dame Angela was born to an Irish actress and a British politician. After the death of her father, she and her mother emigrated to the United States in 1940.

She made her film debut in the 1944 film Gaslight, earning herself an Academy Award nomination for best-supporting actress. The following year she starred in her third film, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), picking up another Oscar nomination for a supporting role, as well as winning a Golden Globe award. She starred in several more movies until she made her first television appearance in 1966. 

She eventually went on to guest star on Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall, hosted by the singer Perry Como. Other well-known films she starred in were The Manchurian Candidate (1962), National Velvet (1944), and Death on the Nile (1978).

Her final film feature role will be out later this year. She will have a brief cameo in Netflix’s 2022 film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. The writer-director of the film, Rian Johnson, called Angela “an absolute legend”.

The decades-long stage career of Dame Angela is one filled with awards and memorable roles. She received six Tony Awards and eight nominations across her career. Winning Best Actresses in a Musical for her roles in Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), Gypsy (1975), and Sweeney Todd (1979). Her last award was a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award earlier this year, which is to “honor an individual for the body of his or her work” in the theater. 

She also dabbled a bit in voice acting. Her most well-known of these roles is Mrs. Potts in Disney’s 1991 animated film, Beauty and the Beast. Dame Angela also voiced characters in Anastasia (1997) and The Grinch (2018).

The television role that she is most well-known for is that of mystery writer and detective Jessica Fletcher in the mid-80s through mid-90s show Murder, She Wrote. This whodunit show ran for 12 seasons, becoming one of the most popular drama shows of its era. Thanks to this role, and the 1966 musical, Mame, she became known as a gay icon.

She is one of the few film and television performers to have been nominated for every EGOT award (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony). She fell short of receiving all four, only being nominated for a Grammy once for Album of the Year in 1993, while winning the other three awards at least once. The album for the movie Beauty and the Beast lost to Eric Clapton’s Unplugged. While she received four Academy Award nominations, the only Oscar she won was an honorary Statuette Oscar in 2013.

Dame Angela was twice married. At the age of 19, she married actor Richard Cromwell. They were only married for about a year and it is believed that he was a homosexual. Her second husband was actor Peter Shaw. Married in 1949, and they stayed married until his death in 2003. He was the father to Angela’s two children, Deidre Angela Shaw, and Anthony Pullen Shaw.

In 2014, she was given the honor of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, for her work in the arts and her charity work. This gave her the official title of Dame.

She is survived by her two children, Deidre, and Anthony Shaw. Anthony is the father to Dame Angela’s three grandchildren, Ian, Katherine, and Peter John.

Many celebrities had their words of compassion upon hearing of her death.

Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander on Twitter called her “one of the most versatile, talented, graceful, kind, witty, wise, classy ladies” he has ever met.

Actor George Takei said “rest, great soul” after announcing her death to his over 3.4 million followers on Twitter. George Takei, most well-known for his role in the Star Trek series, guest starred in Murder, She Wrote.

Broadway actress Kerry Butler acted with Dame Lansbury in her last Broadway appearance, The Best Man (2012). Butler said that it was “an honor and privilege” to work with her, along with it being “a highlight of [her] career”.