The iconic star of Murder She Wrote has died aged 96.
Angela Lansbury, star of Murder She Wrote, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and The Manchurian Candidate, died yesterday in her sleep. The three-time Oscar nominee was just five days away from her 97th birthday.
Her career spanned eight decades, and when she received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2013, Geoffrey Rush called her the “living definition of range.” We’ve taken a look back at some of Lansbury’s life through some of her inspirational quotes — plus some joyful footage from one of her most beloved roles.
On her background
Lansbury was born in central London in 1925, and moved to the United States in 1940 to escape the Blitz. She studied acting in New York before moving to Los Angeles in 1942, and signing with MGM. She starred in major Hollywood movies like Gaslight, National Velvet, The Picture of Dorian Grey, and The Manchurian Candidate, and quickly became a gay icon on Broadway with her 1966 turn in Mame. She moved to County Cork, Ireland, after her Malibu home burned down in 1970.
“I’m eternally grateful for the Irish side of me,” she’s quoted as saying. “That’s where I got my sense of comedy and whimsy. As for the English half , that’s my reserved side. But put me onstage, and the Irish comes out. The combination makes a good mix for acting.”
She embraced the more laid-back approach to life in Ireland, explaining: “I’m very, very comfortable there. I find it an extraordinarily warm and informal place to live.
“I’m left alone there. On the street people say, ‘Hi, how are you?’ and I say, ‘I’m grand, how are you?’”
Lansbury was also cherished in her birthplace, and was awarded a damehood in 2013 for services to drama, charitable work, and philanthropy.
“I’m joining a marvelous group of women I greatly admire like Judi Dench and Maggie Smith,” she told the BBC. “It’s a lovely thing to be given that nod of approval by your own country and I really cherish it.”
On her career
Lansbury was never a young leading lady in the style of old Hollywood icons like Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Vivien Leigh or Rita Hayworth. Undeterred by the fact that she didn’t fit into the siren mold, she threw herself into character roles, playing — in her words — “a series of venal bitches.”
“I played so many hags 20 years older than myself in those early films that now everyone thinks I’m 80 years old!” she told People magazine in 1984. “I never had those chocolate-box looks they wanted for romantic leads in those days.”
Her career slowed a little after she started a family, but she never settled into the traditional homemaker role that was expected of so many women of her time.
“I was a wife and a mother, and I was completely fulfilled,” she explained according to IMDB. “But my husband recognized the signals in me which said ‘I’ve been doing enough gardening, I’ve cooked enough good dinners, I’ve sat around the house and mooned about what more interior decoration I can get my fingers into.’ It’s a curious thing with actors and actresses, but suddenly the alarm goes off. My husband is a very sensitive person to my moods and he recognised the fact that I had to get on with something. Mame came along out of the blue just at this time. Now isn’t that a miracle?”
Lansbury’s work ethic was legendary, and she was adamant that her age never come between her and her craft. In 2013, the year she became a British dame, she said: “I absolutely do not have a retirement age… I’m only 87 – which today is nothing. It’s just like 60 a few years back. I believe age should not stop you from keeping on.”
For many people, the most wonderful example of Lansbury’s determination to keep going was her turn in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in 1991. Having just flown into New York, Lansbury came into the studio without stopping to get any sleep, and recorded the movie’s most famous song, the titular track Beauty and the Beast, in one take.
“I remember the day we were in the recording studio with the amazing Broadway singers in the background chorus and the amazing [New York Philharmonic] orchestra,” said Paige O’Hara, who played Belle. “And then Ms. Lansbury — who I have admired my whole life — came in after being up all night […] and was a trooper. We were all worried she would be too exhausted and then she comes out and sings Beauty and the Beast in one take.”
Lansbury attributed her success in pulling off the unfamiliar song to the adrenaline and pressure of the moment. “I think it was the excitement of it all, the sense of ‘do it now!'” she said.
