Actress Angela Lansbury: biography, family, filmography

Who is Angela Lansbury?

Actress Angela Lansbury was born on October 16, 1925 in East London, eventually immigrating to the United States with her family. Known for playing a variety of roles in film, television and stage, Lansbury was nominated for an Academy Award after appearing in her first film, Gaslight (1944). She continued to work in films in the 60s and 70s, while also appearing in television projects. In 1984, she made her debut as Jessica Fletcher in the hit TV series Murder, She Wrote, which would air the following decade. Lansbury has also received several Tony Awards for her work in projects such as Mom, Gypsy and Sweeney Todd.

Angela Lansbury: filmography of the 50-60s

Angela returned to cinema as a freelance actress, playing small roles in the following films: “Life at the Cauldron” (1954), “The Jester” (1956), “Please Kill Me” (1956), “Long Hut” Summer" (1958), "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" (1959), "Breath of Scandal" (1960), "Blue Hawaii" (1961).

Her role as the widow Mavis in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) was well received by critics. In 1962, her role as Eleanor Aiselin in The Manchurian Candidate was her cinematic triumph and earned her a third Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

Background and training

Actress/singer Angela Lansbury was born on October 16, 1925, near the town of Poplar, located in the East End of London, England. Her Belfast-born mother Moyna McGill was also a stage actress, working with contemporaries such as John Gielgud and Basil Rathbone. Her father, Edward Lansbury, was a prominent politician whose father George was the founder of his country's Labor Party.

Angela died when she was 9 years old, which affected her life. her for the rest of her life. She lived for a time in Ireland during her youth, where both she and her sister attended acting school. At the height of German air attacks during the London Blitz, Lansbury, her mother and two younger brothers fled the war and immigrated to the United States in 1940, settling in New York City.

Angela Lansbury photographed in 1950. (Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Multiple Oscar nominations

In New York, Lansbury received a scholarship to study drama at the Lucy Fagan School. His mother took a job in a Canadian production and assigned Lansbury to move to Los Angeles, where the aspiring actress worked in a department store before landing her debut film role. She appeared in 1944 with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Playing housekeeper Nancy, Lansbury went up against established stars and received an Oscar nomination for her performance as an actress in a supporting role.

She was nominated again the following year and won a Golden Globe for her performance as dancehall dame Sybil Vane in Dorian Gray, which followed the story of a man who makes a supernatural pact to stay young at a high cost. Early in her career, Lansbury landed other important roles, including that of Elizabeth Taylor's older sister in National Velvet (1944) and in Harvey's Girls (1946) with Judy Garland and Cyd Charisse. Lansbury was often cast as supporting characters, and she actually found her way into roles in which she played characters significantly older than her actual age.

Lansbury continued to make films over the next decade, including The Manchurian Candidate (1963), which earned her her third Academy Award for supporting actress. Other films in the 1960s included Blue Hawaii (1961) with Elvis Presley, The Love Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) and the biblical The Greatest Story of All, the latter starring Charlton Heston and Max von Sydow . Appearing in Mister Budwing (1966), she starred as the Countess in the comedy Something for Everyone opposite Michael York, and then in the partially animated Disney musical Meatballs and Broomsticks (1971), in which she played the witch Miss Price.

Selected filmography[edit | edit code]

"Murder, She Wrote"

Lansbury spent years switching between film, television and the stage, and by the mid-1980s he had achieved success on the small screen. Beginning in 1984, she played the beautiful Jessica Fletcher in the hit TV series Murder Mystery. As the diplomatic, kind and smart Fletcher, Lansbury received Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series category every year from 1985 to 1996, eventually taking over production duties for the show.

Joseleur, Sposer, Josephsler, Josephser, Sposer, Mrs. Loseber (Photo: Randy Marcus/NBC Photo Bank/NBCU via Getty Images)

Since the show's end, Lansbury has appeared in television films, including some Murder, specials and feature films. She also appeared on television. In 2005, she played a prominent role in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. She has also voiced several animated characters for films, including Beauty and the Beast (1991), in which she voiced Mrs. Potts and sang the theme song in Beauty and the Beast, and Be Our Guest with Jerry Orbach and Anastasia (1997 ).

In 2014, Lansbury received an honorary Academy Award for her cinematic achievements.

Tony winner scene

In addition to her on-screen work, Lansbury is considered one of the most iconic performers of all time on both sides of the pond. She made her Broadway debut in 1957 with Hotel Paradiso. He then played roles in the drama A Taste of Honey (1961) and the Stephen Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle (1964).

Vocalist Lansbury was cast in the lead role of the title character in the musical production of Mame (1966), playing a great free spirit who tries to guide his nephew towards his true self. This was followed by her role as the mad Countess Aurelia in Dear World (1969), and then as the famed Mama Rose in Gypsy (1974). Lansbury later portrayed special pie maker Mrs. Lovett in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (1979). Lansbury won the Tony Award for Performance by an Actress in a Musical for all four productions.

In 2007, she returned to Broadway after more than two decades performing in The Deuce. Lansbury played a former tennis pro who is reunited with her counterpart at the awards ceremony at the US Open. In 2009, she appeared on stage again for Blithe Spirit, a revival of Noel Coward's play about a man haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife. Speaking about his role as Madame Arcati, Ben Brantley wrote for The New York Times, "for sheer originality and expressiveness," he ’It's hard to imagine any Broadway chorus line leading the solo dances performed here by the 83-year-old woman with an excess of bad jewelry, a gazelle gait and a set of poses reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs. ”

In 2009, Lansbury's commendable performance won another Tony Award for Best Actress. This tied Lansbury with performer Julie Harris for a record five Tony wins, a number only surpassed by Audra McDonald as of 2014. Lansbury has fortunately continued her stage work, playing Madame Armfeldt in the 2009 revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night The Music, opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones, and in 2012, a leading role in the Gore Vidal satire The Best Man.

Angela Lansbury photographed in 1989. (Photo by Ron Galella/WireImage)

Personal life

When she was 19, Lansbury married briefly to fellow actor Richard Cromwell. He left the marriage a few months after their wedding and was later revealed to be gay. Then, in 1949, she married British actor Peter Shaw, who later became her manager and began working. She wrote that the production company would be actively involved in the murder. The couple were together for more than five decades and had two children, Anthony and Deirdre.

After Shaw's death in 2003, Lansbury entered a period of depression. She eventually recovered, partly crediting her theater work and actress Emma Thompson, who cast Lansbury as the evil Aunt Adelaide in 2005's Nanny McPhee.

In November 2020, the actress was back in the news after she was asked to take part in the recent sexual harassment scandals. took over the industry. She drew attention to her response, which included her opinion that women "sometimes have to take the blame."

Lansbury later insisted that she had been misunderstood. Those who knew the quality of my work and the many public statements I made during my life would know that I am a strong supporter of women's rights,” she said. I would like to add that it bothers me how quickly and cruelly some have taken my comments out of context and tried to blame my generation, my age or my thinking without reading everything I said.

The famous "Gaslight"

Angela Lansbury got her first theater job at the age of 16 in a nightclub, telling everyone that she was already 19 years old. Her partner was Arthur Bourbon, with whom she performed Noelle Coward's songs.

In 1942, they moved to Hollywood, Los Angeles, because my mother wanted to become an actress again. But she was soon fired for incompetence, and they lived only on Angela’s salary - $28 a week.

At a party hosted by her mother, she meets John Van Druten, who co-wrote the screenplay for the new film Gaslight (1944). And he invited Lansbury to play the role of the maid Nancy Oliver. But since Angela was only 17 years old, a social worker was present on the set with her. Soon she signs a seven-year contract with Metro-Golden Mayer, earning $500 a week. After the release of the film "Gaslight", Lansbury's role was highly praised and she was even nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress.

At the age of 19, she married actor Richard Cromwell for the first time. This marriage was short, as Angela soon found out that her husband was gay.