Profile of Angela Lansbury on Famous Like Me

Angela Lansbury, CBE (born October 16, 1925) is a British-American actress and the granddaughter of British Labour politician George Lansbury. She was born Angela Brigid Lansbury in London, England, the daughter of a Belfast-born actress, Moyna MacGill. She moved to the United States at the beginning of World War II and became a naturalized citizen in 1951.

She made her Academy Award nominated film debut in 1944, in the Charles Boyer/Ingrid Bergman film Gaslight, followed by another Oscar nomination for the Oscar Wilde film The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) and has since enjoyed a long and varied career, mainly as a film actress, appearing in everything from Samson and Delilah (1949) to Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).

Lansbury's performance in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) as the overbearing mother of a brainwashed assassin, won much praise and won her a third Oscar nomination. In the film, Lansbury's son was played by Laurence Harvey, who was then only three years younger than she. Lansbury has been quoted in an interview with CNN's Larry King as saying that this was her favorite of her many film roles.

Lansbury received a Golden Globe in 1965 for her work the previous year as a similarly distant mother in the comedy, The World of Henry Orient, opposite her love-interest in the film, Peter Sellers, and a very young Tom Bosley as her husband. She later played Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd (1980). She then turned to character voice work in animated films like The Last Unicorn (1984), winning a great deal of praise for her affectionate turn as the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in the Disney hit Beauty and the Beast (1991). She also did character work as the Dowager Empress in the less well-received animated film Anastasia in 1997.

On Broadway, Lansbury received good reviews from her very first musical outing, the short-lived 1964 Stephen Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle. Starting in 1966, her long-running portrayal as Jerry Herman's Mame, opposite Bea Arthur as Vera, earned Lansbury her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Subsequent Tony awards were earned for Dear World (1969) and the first Broadway revival of Gypsy (1974). Her English music-hall turn as meat-pie entrepreneuse Mrs. Lovett in Sondheim's ballad opera Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street earned her yet another Tony Award in 1979. She has received a Tony nomination for every lead role she has essayed on Broadway, and won each time, unlike her unlucky record at the Oscars.

As Jessica Fletcher in the long-running television series, Murder, She Wrote (1984 -1996), she found her biggest success and a worldwide following. It was to be one of the longest running prime time detective drama series in US TV history and made her one of the highest paid actresses in the world and a record as the most nominated lead actress without a win in the prime time Emmy awards (with 12 nominations).

In the early 1990s the British Government awarded Angela Lansbury the CBE. She was named a Disney Legend in 1995. She received a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997, and Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.

Lansbury was briefly married from 1945-46 to American actor Richard Cromwell when she was 19 and Cromwell was 35. In 1948, Lansbury remarried, to Irish-born actor and businessman Peter Shaw, who had been a former boyfriend of the much-older actress, Joan Crawford. Shaw was instrumental in guiding and managing Ms. Lansbury's career. Until Shaw's death in 2003, Lansbury enjoyed one of the longest and most prolific of show-business marriages.

Lansbury is the mother of two, stepmother of one, and a proud grandmother several times over. Her son, Antony, was producer/director of Murder She Wrote, and is today a television executive. Lansbury's daughter, Deirdre Angela Shaw Battarrais, who beat a serious drug addiction with her devoted mother's help (Lansbury moved to rural Ireland from California to escape the scourge of drugs) and is today, along with her Italian-born husband Enzo, the co-manager of a popular cafe, Ristorante Positano, in West Los Angeles, California.

Interestingly, Lansbury was related by her half-sister Isolde's marriage to the late British actor, Sir Peter Ustinov; the two in-laws appeared together professionally just once in 1978's Death on the Nile. Lansbury is today related -- by the marriage of her stepson David Lansbury -- to the American actress Ally Sheedy. A footnote is that one of Ms. Lansbury's two twin brothers, Edgar Lansbury, was the producer of Godspell, the smash-hit broadway musical, in the 1970s.

Today, Lansbury, a longtime resident of Brentwood, California takes time to support various philanthropic groups. Lansbury was the Guest of Honor at the 14th annual Gala and Fundraiser on April 16, 2005 for Women in Recovery, Inc., a Venice, California-based non-profit organization offering a live-in, 12-Step program of rehabilitation for women in need. Past Honorees of this organization have included Jamie Lee Curtis and Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Lansbury had knee replacement surgery on July 14, 2005.

Lansbury also enjoys vacation time regularly at her home in County Cork, Ireland.

Filmography

• Gaslight (1944)
• National Velvet (1944)
• The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
• The Harvey Girls (1946)
• The Hoodlum Saint (1946)
• Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
• The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947)
• If Winter Comes (1947)
• State of the Union (1948)
• The Three Musketeers (1948)
• Tenth Avenue Angel (1948)
• The Red Danube (1949)
• Samson and Delilah (1949)
• Kind Lady (1951)
• Mutiny (1952)
• Remains to Be Seen (1953)
• A Life at Stake (1954)
• The Purple Mask (1955)
• A Lawless Street (1955)
• The Court Jester (1956)
• Please Murder Me (1956)
• The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
• The Reluctant Debutante (1958)
• Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1959)
• The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960)
• A Breath of Scandal (1960)
• Blue Hawaii (1961)
• Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (1962) (dubbed speaking voice for Ingrid Thulin for a few scenes)
• All Fall Down (1962)
• The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
• In the Cool of the Day (1963)
• The World of Henry Orient (1964)
• Dear Heart (1964)
• The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
• The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965)
• Harlow (1965)
• Mister Buddwing (1966)
• Something for Everyone (1970)
• Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
• Death on the Nile (1978)
• The Lady Vanishes (1979)
• The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
• The Last Unicorn (1982) (voice)
• The Pirates of Penzance (1983)
• The Company of Wolves (1984)
• Ingrid (1985) (documentary)
• Beauty and the Beast (1991) (voice)
• Your Studio and You (1995) (short subject)
• Anastasia (1997) (voice)
• Fantasia 2000 (1999)
• The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (1999) TV movie (as Emily Pollifax)
• About Schmidt (2002) (Cameo)
• Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)
• The Blackwater Lightship (2004
• Nanny McPhee (2005) (currently in post-production)
• The Last Unicorn (2006) (voice) (currently in pre-production)

Broadway Stage Performances

• Hotel Paradiso (Apr. - Jul. 1957)
• A Taste of Honey (Oct. 1960 - Sep. 1961)
• Anyone Can Whistle (Apr. 1964)
• Mame (May 1966 - Jan. 1970)
• Dear World (Feb. - May 1969)
• Gypsy (Sep. 1974 - Jan. 1975)
• The King and I (May 1977 - Dec. 1978)
• Sweeney Todd (Mar. 1979 - Jun. 1980)
• A Little Family Business (Dec. 1982)
• Mame (Jul. - Aug. 1983)
• Short Talks on the Universe (Nov. 2002)

Awards

Academy Awards

Nominated:

• Best Supporting Actress (Gaslight, 1945)
• Best Supporting Actress (The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1946)
• Best Supporting Actress (The Manchurian Candidate, 1963)

BAFTA Awards

Won:

• Britannia Award (Lifetime Achievement, 2003)

Nominated:

• Best Supporting Actress (Death on the Nile, 1978)

Tony Awards

Won:

• Best Actress (Mame, 1966)
• Best Actress (Dear World, 1969)
• Best Actress (Gypsy, 1975)
• Best Actress (Sweeney Todd, 1979)

Emmy Awards

Nominated:

• Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series (for playing Eleanor Duvall in "Law & Order: Trial by Jury", 2005)
• Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie (The Blackwater Lightship, 2004)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1996)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1995)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1994)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1993)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1992)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1991)
• Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program ("The 43rd Annual Tony Awards", 1990)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1990)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1989)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1988)
• Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program ("The 41st Annual Tony Awards", 1987)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1987)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1986)
• Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program (Sweeney Todd, 1985)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series ("Murder, She Wrote", 1985)
• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie (Little Gloria... Happy at Last, 1983)

Golden Globes

Won:

• Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama ("Murder, She Wrote", 1992)
• Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama ("Murder, She Wrote", 1990)
• Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama ("Murder, She Wrote", 1987)
• Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama ("Murder, She Wrote", 1985)
• Best Supporting Actress (The Manchurian Candidate, 1963)
• Best Supporting Actress (The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1946)

Nominated:

• Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama ("Murder, She Wrote", 1995)
• Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama ("Murder, She Wrote", 1993)
• Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama ("Murder, She Wrote", 1991)
• Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama ("Murder, She Wrote", 1989)
• Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama ("Murder, She Wrote", 1988)
• Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama ("Murder, She Wrote", 1986)
• Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Miniseries or TV-Movie (A Gift of Love: A Christmas Story, 1983)
• Best Motion Picture Actress - Musical/Comedy (Bedknobs and Broomsticks, 1972)
• Best Motion Picture Actress - Musical/Comedy (Something for Everyone, 1970)

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