Angela Lansbury, the legend of stage (six Tonys, including a lifetime achievement award in 2022) and screen (18 Emmy nominations and three Oscar nominations, as well as an honorary award), died on Tuesday. She was 96 years old.
“The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday,” her family said in a statement. “In addition to her three children, Anthony, Deirdre, and David, she is survived by three grandchildren, Peter, Katherine, and Ian, plus five great grandchildren and her brother, producer Edgar Lansbury. She was proceeded in death by her husband of 53 years, Peter Shaw. A private family ceremony will be held at a date to be determined.”
Born in 1925 in London, England, Lansbury was one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, having gotten her start in the 1940s. She was nominated for her first Oscar for 1944’s Gaslight, followed a year by 1945’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Her third nomination — and arguably finest on-screen performance — was for her chilling performance as Mrs. Iselin in 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate.
Around the same time, Lansbury also started a run that led to the New York Times calling her the “First Lady of Musical Theatre,” including starring roles in Mame, Gypsy, and later, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. To a younger generation, however, Lansbury will forever be associated with Murder, She Wrote, where she played murder-mystery novelist and sleuth Jessica Fletcher, and Beauty and the Beast, the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture. That would not have happened without her stunning rendition of the title song, which she famously nailed in one take.
Try to not cry. You can’t.
(Via Broadway World)
Source: https://uproxx.com/movies/angela-lansbury-dead/
