Angela Lansbury, one of the most beloved and acclaimed actors of stage, film, and television, died in her sleep at her Los Angeles home on October 11th, just five days shy of her 97th birthday.
Her family announced the death of the three-time Oscar nominee and Murder, She Wrote star.
She was nominated for an Emmy 18 times, including for Lead Actress in a Drama for every season of Murder, She Wrote, but she never won. Her final nomination came in 2005 for an unforgettable performance on a crossover episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Trial by Jury. In a nod to The Manchurian Candidate, Lansbury played yet another evil matriarch, the powerful and overprotective Eleanor Duvall, mother of a serial rapist played by Alfred Molina.
Lansbury was born in London on October 16, 1925, and moved to the United States in 1940, then to Hollywood in 1942, where she signed with MGM and made her debut as a maid in the classic psychological thriller Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman. Lansbury appeared in The Picture of Dorian Gray the following year, and she received Oscar nominations for both performances.
Lansbury received her first Oscar nomination in 1944, when she was only 20 years old, for her film debut, “Gaslight.” Her second came the following year in “The Portrait of Dorian Gray,” and she appeared in “The Manchurian Candidate” in 1962 as the mother who betrays her son and her country. (She won Golden Globes for the last two films.)
The actress received an honorary Oscar in 2013, in addition to the five Tony Awards she received over a 40-year period, beginning with “Mame” in 1966 and ending with a revival of Noel Coward’s play “Blithe Spirit” in 2009. Lansbury was nominated for 11 Emmys for her role as Jessica Fletcher in “Murder, She Wrote,” but she never won.
Lansbury went from ingenue to playing more mature roles almost overnight. She was 37, for example, when she played Laurence Harvey’s devious mother in “Manchurian Candidate,” despite the fact that her co-star was only two years her junior.
Lansbury rose to prominence in her 60s for her role as a crime-solving mystery writer in “Murder, She Wrote.” Lansbury said Jessica Fletcher was the most like her of all her roles.
