Angela Lansbury, the famed British actress who had a career spanning over 75 years has died just days shy of her 97th birthday.
Lansbury was best known to one generation for her role as Jessica Fletcher; the murder solving maven of Cabot Cove, Maine on the long running TV series Murder She Wrote. She was known to still another generation as the voice of the friendly, singing teapot, Mrs. Potts in the animated movie Beauty and the Beast.
However, long before either of those roles, Lansbury was nominated for Oscars for two of her first three movies; 1947’s Gaslight (The movie that gives us the term “gaslighting“) and 1946’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. She was nominated again in 1962 for playing a villainess communist agent in The Manchurian Candidate.
Still, Lansbury was perhaps most revered for her performances on stage, such as Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. For her Broadway performances, Lansbury was nominated for eight Tony awards, winning six, including a lifetime achievement award. Her last regular role on Broadway was in a production of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit at age 89.
She was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth and won virtually every award for acting with the exception of the Prime Time Emmy. for which she was nominated 18 times without taking home a trophy.
