Angela Lansbury, a British actress whose career lasted for seven decades and earned her an honorary Oscar, has died. Lansbury’s family says that she died on Tuesday. She had lived for 96 years. “Dame Angela Lansbury’s children are sad to say that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days before her 97th birthday,” the family said in a statement.
Lansbury was born in 1925. Her parents were Moyna Macgill, an Irish actress, and Edgar Lansbury, a British politician. George Lansbury was her father’s grandfather. He was a founder of the Labour Party in the UK. Lansbury’s father died when she was 9. She has said in interviews that this event changed her life. During World War II, the actress’s family left the U.K. in 1940 and moved to the U.S., where she started her acting career.
Lansbury joined MGM in 1942, and her first role was in “Gaslight” in 1944. This part got her a nomination for an Oscar. The actress got two more Oscar nominations for her parts in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” in 1945 and “The Manchurian Candidate” in 1962. In 2013, Lansbury was finally given an honorary trophy.
Lansbury is best known for her role as mystery writer Jessica Fletcher in the popular TV show “Murder, She Wrote.” The show began in 1984, and four years later, Lansbury’s Corymore Productions began working with Universal to make the show. Lansbury owned the show and took on the role of executive producer for the last four seasons. After 12 seasons, the show went off the air in 1996.
Lansbury went on to win six Golden Globes and five Tony Awards for her work on both sides of the pond. This year, she also won a lifetime achievement award. She also had 18 Emmy Award nominations. Even 10 times for “Murder, She Wrotelead “an actress. In 2014, Queen Elizabeth II made her a dame.
In 1949, Lansbury married the late British actor Peter Shaw. There were two kids in the family. In 2012, the actress told The Telegraph about her marriage. “We were a unit. We didn’t block out the rest of the world, but we were almost too closed off “she told the news station. “As time went on, he had complete control over my career and made it possible for me to do what I did. Somehow, some way, we made it work.”
They were married until he died in 2003, but Lansbury had been married before. Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell when she was 19 years old, in 1945. After a few months, the actress asked for a divorce on September 11, 1946. Lansbury told The Telegraph that she found out Cromwell was gay after the marriage broke up.
