- Actor Angela Lansbury, who became a household name through her role as a writer-detective in Murder, She Wrote, has died.
- "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 today, Tuesday," a statement said.
- Murder, She Wrote ran from 1984 to 1996, in addition to four telefilms. During the course of 12 seasons, Lansbury's character, Jessica Fletcher, solved some 300 murders — and wrote more than 30 books.
Actor Angela Lansbury, who became a household name through her role as a writer-detective in Murder, She Wrote, has died, her family said on Tuesday. She was 96.
"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 today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday," a statement obtained by People said.
"In addition to her three children, Anthony, Deirdre and David, she is survived by three grandchildren, Peter, Katherine and Ian, plus five great grandchildren and her brother, producer Edgar Lansbury," the statement added.
"She was proceeded in death by her husband of 53 years, Peter Shaw. A private family ceremony will be held at a date to be determined."
Born Angela Brigid Lansbury, the actor was the daughter of Belfast-born actor Moyna MacGill and her second husband, lumber merchant Edgar Lansbury.
The three-time Oscar nominee and five-time Tony Award winner shared that her mother was the reason for her career in acting on multiple occasions.
"It was thanks to my mother who recognised in me an ability to cut up, to make believe, to run around being somebody other than the little girl that I was," Lansbury told Masterpiece Studio podcast in 2018, per People. "It made her realise that I was a natural, and she, bless her heart, made the decisions for me very, very, very young."
In movies, Lansbury turned in riveting supporting performances, including her film debut as a teenager playing the conniving Cockney maid in Gaslight in 1944, as the doomed Sibyl in The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1945 and as Laurence Harvey's evil, manipulative mother in The Manchurian Candidate in 1962. All three roles earned her Academy Award nominations.
Nearly seven decades after her first film, she was awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement at age 88 in November 2013. Academy Award winners Geoffrey Rush and Emma Thompson offered a tribute to Lansbury at the ceremony. Rush lauded her as the "living definition of range," while Thompson recalled tossing a pie at Lansbury during the filming of the 2005 comedy Nanny McPhee.
Lansbury also was memorable as Elvis Presley's mom in Blue Hawaii (1961), as a cold-hearted parent in The World of Henry Orient (1964), as the English witch Eglentine Price in Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and as the teapot Mrs. Potts in the animated Beauty and the Beast (1991).
Lansbury received an Emmy nomination for best actress in a drama series for every season of Murder, She Wrote — yet never won, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
In the early 1980s, she was approached by Columbo creators Richard Levinson and William Link to star in Murder, She Wrote, but wasn't interested.
"I couldn’t imagine I would ever want to do television," Lansbury said in a 1985 interview with The New York Times. "But the year 1983 rolled around and Broadway was not forthcoming ... and I began to sense that the television audience was very receptive to me, and I decided I should stop flirting and shut the door or say to my agents, 'I'm ready to think series.'"
Murder, She Wrote ran from 1984 to 1996, in addition to four telefilms. During the course of 12 seasons, Lansbury's character, Jessica Fletcher, solved some 300 murders — and wrote more than 30 books.
The Broadway star won four Tonys between the time she appeared as Mame Dennis in 1966's Mame and Mrs. Lovett in 1979's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. She went on to win a fifth Tony for 2009's Blithe Spirit, her first Tony for her performance in a play versus a musical.
In June, Lansbury was awarded the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, marking her sixth Tony Award overall.