Angela Lansbury (‘The Rookie Witch’, ‘Murder She Wrote’) has died aged 96

Three-time Oscar nominee, five-time Tony Award winner, 12 seasons as TV’s greatest female detective in “Murder, She Wrote”; This January 11 died one of the most important actresses of her generation, Angela Lansbury died at the age of 96. According to media reports from her family, the actress died in her sleep Tuesday night at 1:30 am at her Los Angeles home. Impossible to forget her as the witch in “The Rookie Witch”, Lansbury was a tireless worker and until her 90th birthday he was still touring the comedy “A Mocking Spirit” and appeared in “Mary Poppins Returns”.

Grandson of George Lansbury, a Labor politician who became a candidate for Prime Minister, Lansbury was born in London in October 1925, but after the outbreak of World War II, her family moved to the United States. Daughter of actress Moyna MacGill, Angela Lansbury began working with her at age 16 in the comedy ‘Tonight at 8:30’ and attending film and theater parties, she landed a role in the film ‘Luz que agoniza ‘in 1944 by George Cukor, with Ingrid Bergman. First film and first Oscar nomination. He studied at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York and graduated in 1942. Other films would come later, such as “Fire of Youth” with Elizabeth Taylor and “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, and with that his next nomination. at the Oscar. . Her third, which she didn’t even win, came in 1962 with “The Manchurian Candidate”, where she played Laurence Harvey’s manipulative mother although she was only about 3 years older than him. What he won was an Oscar, albeit an honorary one, in 2013 for his career as “an entertainment icon who has created some of cinema’s most memorable films and characters, inspiring generations of actors.”

She starred opposite Judy Garland in “Harvey’s Girls”. and was Elvis Presley’s mother in “Love in Hawaii”. Other titles that cannot be ignored are ‘El irresistible Henry Orient’ (by George Roy Hill), ‘Death on the Nile’ (where he literally shared a locker room with Maggie Smith and Bette Davis); and “The Broken Mirror,” based on another Agatha Christie novel in which she played Mrs. Marple and also starred Tony Curtis and Kim Novak. Worse is more: ‘Mr Poper’s penguins’, ‘The magic nanny’, ‘In the company of wolves’, ‘The pirates of Penzance’, ‘The lady of the espresso’, ‘The woman without a face’, ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told “,” The Long Hot Summer “,” The Three Musketeers “,” The State of the Union “,” The Red Danube “,” Samson and Delilah “…

Cinema, television, theater and animation

In 1980, and although she had no particular interest in television, Richard Levinson and William Link, creators of “Colombo”, proposed that she star in their own crime series. and at the age of 59 she became Jessica Fletcher, a retired widowed English teacher, mystery writer and crime solver, who always rode a bicycle. “A Crime Was Written” was broadcast between 1984 and 1996 and also had four films for television, achieving resounding success with audiences. For this series, Lansbury was nominated for the Emmy for Best Actress in each of the 12 seasons, although she never won it, but she won 4 Golden Globes (and she already had 2 more before).

As a voice actress, Lansbury is the voice of Mr. Potts in the original Disney “Beauty and the Beast” and its sequel, “Beauty and the Beast 2: An Enchanted Christmas”; and that of grandmother Marie Romanov in ‘Anastasia’. We also heard it in the latest animated version of “The Grinch” of 2018 and in “The Last Unicorn”.

Furthermore, his career was not limited to film and television screens. and he was a recognized star on the Broadway stage. His first major stage role was the production of “Mame” in 1966 (which he would repeat in this work in 1983) and he also starred in adaptations of “Gypsy”, “The King and I”, “Sweeney Todd”, “Driving Miss Daisy ‘or’ A Little Night Music ‘, among others.

Personally, Angela Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell when she was 19 and 37 and less than a year later they separated when he announced he was gay. In 1949 she married Peter Shaw, an agent and producer, and they had been together for more than 50 years. until Shaw’s death in 2003. Together they had two children, Anthony and Deirdre, and also took care of her husband’s son David. She was a supporter of the Democratic Party in the United States and of Labor in the United Kingdom. You have supported Abused Wives in Crisis and HIV charities.