Angela Lansbury

Fri 10th Jul - 9:00PM

Best known for her endearing portrayal of Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote, Lansbury has had a 50-year career spanning film, theatre and television - and a life fraught with frustration and disappointment.

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Angela Lansbury
born: 16-10-1925
birth place: London, England

Angela Brigid Lansbury was born in London in 1925 to Belfast born actress Moyna MacGill and businessman Edgar Lansbury.

Lansbury’s mother played a significant part influencing her daughter’s love of the theatre, taking her to plays at the Old Vic in London and subsequently removing her from South Hampstead High School for Girls to enroll her at the Ritman School of Dancing (later known as the Webber-Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art) instead.

Sadly, Lansbury’s father died of stomach cancer in 1934 and her mother immediately took charge of her children (including Lansbury’s twin brothers Edgar and Bruce, who later became successful Broadway and television producers respectively, and a half-sister) as best she could. But with the outbreak of the Second World War looming, Moyna immediately booked a one-way trip to New York and fled London.

Once in New York, Lansbury studied drama until her mother, who had been supporting the family by touring in a Noel Coward play, sent for her to join her in Los Angeles. In LA, Lansbury worked at the Bullocks Wilshire department store while her mother hosted parties for British performers who were making their first visits to California. At one of these parties she was introduced to MGM casting agent Mel Ballerino who was assembling a cast for the film version of the Broadway play Gaslight.

Lansbury was lucky enough to be offered the role of Nancy in the film (1944) playing the malicious maid to Ingrid Bergman’s Paula and her performance was so admired that she earned her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in her very first film debut. Just a year later, she was nominated in the same category again for her portrayal of Sibyl Vane in Dorian Gray.

In 1945, at the tender age of 19, Lansbury married American actor Richard Cromwell - who was then 35. Unbeknown to her, Cromwell was bisexual and the marriage ended after a year, but the two remained friends.

In 1949, Lansbury married Irish-born actor Peter Shaw. The couple had two children, Anthony and Deirdre as well as David, a son from Shaw’s previous marriage. Shaw was instrumental in guiding and managing Lansbury's career when he made the career move from acting to agenting and producing. Until his death in 2003, Lansbury and Shaw enjoyed one of the longest show business marriages on record.

Treading the boards on Broadway, Lansbury received positive reviews for her first musical Anyone Can Whistle in 1964. Two years later she achieved major success in Mame (1969) which ran for 1,500 performances and earned her a Tony award for Best Leading Actress.

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