Dame Angela Lansbury has passed away at the age of 96. The iconic actress died in her sleep at her home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, October 11.
“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.
The London-born actress won a host of accolades during her decades-long career, including five Tony awards and an honorary Oscar. Lansbury moved to the US in the 1940s in a bid to escape the Blitz and she studied acting at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York City.
Lansbury ultimately signed a deal with MGM and, in 1944, she starred alongside Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, and Joseph Cotten in “Gaslight”, a psychological thriller film. Lansbury’s performance earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Oscars.
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She subsequently starred in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, which earned her two Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe Award. Lansbury also had a starring role in 1962’s “The Manchurian Candidate”, with her performance receiving widespread acclaim.
However, her true breakthrough came on the stage, when she starred in the Broadway musical “Mame” in 1966. Her performance earned her the first Tony award of her career. Lansbury also appeared in the stage musicals “Gypsy” and “Sweeney Todd”, as well as in the Disney movie “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” in 1971 and “Beauty and the Beast” in 1991.
Despite this, Lansbury is, perhaps, best remembered for playing amateur detective Jessica Fletcher in the hit TV series “Murder, She Wrote”. The show ran for 12 seasons, between 1984 and 1996, and it proved to be a massive success, attracting more 30 million viewers per week in its prime.
Lansbury – who was inducted into the TV Hall of Fame in 1996 and was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth in 2014 – said, ” ‘Murder, She Wrote’ has given me more worldwide attention than any other role I played in the movies or on the stage. It’s a wonderful thing to be known in Spain, Portugal, in Paris, in France and Germany and everywhere.”
Lansbury is survived by her three children, Anthony, Deirdre and David, and her three grandchildren, Peter, Katherine and Ian.
