Angela Lansbury  

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Angela Lansbury (1925 – 2022) was an Irish-British and American actress and singer who played various roles across film, stage, and television. At the time of her death, she was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.

To escape the Blitz, she moved to the United States in 1940, studying acting in New York City. Proceeding to Hollywood in 1942, she signed to MGM and obtained her first film roles, in Gaslight (1944), National Velvet (1944), and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), earning her two Academy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared in eleven further MGM films, mostly in minor roles, and after her contract ended in 1952, she began to supplement her cinematic work with theatrical appearances. Although she was largely seen as a B-list star during this period, her role in the film The Manchurian Candidate (1962) received widespread acclaim and it is frequently cited as one of her best performances during her career, earning her a third Academy Award nomination and another Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Moving into musical theatre, Lansbury finally gained stardom for playing the leading role in the Broadway musical Mame (1966), which won her her first Tony Award and established her as a gay icon.

Amidst difficulties in her personal life, Lansbury moved from California to County Cork, Ireland, in 1970, and she continued to star in a variety of theatrical and cinematic appearances throughout that decade. These appearances included leading roles in the stage musicals Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, and The King and I, as well as in the hit Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Moving into television in 1984, she achieved worldwide fame as the fictional writer and sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the American whodunit series Murder, She Wrote, which ran for twelve seasons until 1996, becoming one of the longest-running and most popular detective drama series in television history. Through Corymore Productions, a company that she co-owned with her husband Peter Shaw, Lansbury assumed ownership of the series and she was its executive producer during its final four seasons. She also moved into voice work, contributing to animated films like Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Don Bluth's Anastasia (1997). She toured in a variety of international productions and continued to make appearances in films, such as Nanny McPhee (2005) and Mary Poppins Returns (2018). Her final film role was in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery in 2022.

Lansbury received an Honorary Academy Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the BAFTA, a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award and five additional Tony Awards, six Golden Globes and an Olivier Award. She also was nominated for numerous other industry awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress three times, various Primetime Emmy Awards on 18 occasions (including 12 Emmy nominations in a row for Best Actress for Murder, She Wrote), and a Grammy Award (for Beauty and the Beast). In 2014, Lansbury was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. She was the subject of three biographies. thumb|200px|right|Lansbury in 1950 British and American actress Angela Lansbury (1925-2022) was known for her prolific work in theatre, film and television.

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