Angela Lansbury

Who is Angela Lansbury?

Angela Brigid Lansbury, CBE is a British American actress and singer in theatre, television and films. Her career has spanned seven decades and earned an unsurpassed number of performance Tony Awards, with five wins.

Born in East London to actress Moyna MacGill and politician Edgar Lansbury, in 1940 Lansbury moved to New York City, where she studied acting. Moving to Hollywood, Los Angeles in 1942, she signed to MGM and secured her first cinematic roles, in Gaslight and The Picture of Dorian Gray, earning two Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe Award. She appeared in 11 further MGM films, mostly in minor roles, and after her contract ended in 1952 she began supplementing her cinematic work with theatrical appearances. Although her appearance in the film adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate was widely acclaimed, she only gained theatrical stardom for her starring role in the Broadway musical Mame. Relocating from California to County Cork, Ireland in 1970, she continued with a variety of theatrical and cinematic appearances throughout that decade.

Moving to television, in 1984 Lansbury achieved widespread fame as the fictional writer and sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the American murder mystery series Murder, She Wrote, which ran for 12 seasons until 1996. One of the longest-running detective drama series in television history, she assumed ownership of the series and was executive producer for the final 4 seasons. She also moved into voice work, thereby appearing in animated films like Beauty and the Beast. Since, she has toured prolifically in a variety of international productions, and continued to make occasional cinematic appearances.