Angela Lansbury carried with her a powerful dignity whenever she graced the stage or screen, even from the very beginning. Lansbury’s Very First Film Show (1944) gaslight) earned her an Oscar nomination at age 19; as if to prove this was no fluke, the actress received another Oscar nomination (and won a Golden Globe) the following year for The portrait of Dorian Gray.
The awards barely stopped there for Lansbury, who was nominated for a Golden Globe 10 years in a row (out of 15 nominations) and a Primetime Emmy Award 12 years in a row (out of 18 nominations), winning five Tony Awards. Fortunately, this year she received her well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Tony Award before passing away on October 11 at age 96, just five days before her 97th birthday. On Lansbury’s 95th birthday, she showed her usual humility, kindness and warmth by saying:
What a happy life I’ve had, doing what I love most – acting and entertaining amazing audiences around the world. I do feel privileged to be able to celebrate my 95th birthday with my dearest family here in California. I am fortunate to be able to stay safe and my heart goes out to everyone who is suffering or has lost loved ones.”
That same kind of feeling and gratitude could be seen for most of her life. Lansbury was a lot to many people. Aside from being a queen of the stage and acclaimed performer on screen, she was a literal Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a gay icona loving wife of 53 years (until the death of her husband Peter Shaw), a quiet but intimate religious woman, a social activist and a mother who was endlessly devoted to her children despite the very difficult times in their lives.
She left the world with not only a large and loving family, with three grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but also an incredible filmography that will forever remain a gift to film and television fans. These are just some of Angela Lansbury’s most beloved appearances in film and television.
9/9 The Mirror Crack’d
Lansbury leads an all-star cast (Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, Geraldine Chaplin, a very young Pierce Brosnan) in the otherwise mediocre 1980 film The Mirror Crack’d. While the film didn’t exactly receive critical acclaim, earning only $11 million from its $6 million budget, it’s pivotal to Lansbury’s career as it (unbeknownst to Lansbury) essentially auditiones her for the role that would bring her. in the television sets of millions and millions of people a few years later in Murder she wrote.
Lansbury does a good job of inhabiting the classic Agatha Christie character Miss Marple in this film that has an unfortunately weak script and poor direction. Her Miss Marple (and recent portrayal of another Christie character in) Death on the Nile) sealed the deal for her casting Murder she wroteand provided a wealth of experience as a charming, witty sleuth prior to her iconic role on that show.
8/9 A life at stake
Monarch Film Corporation
This woefully underrated 1950s film noir was funded and distributed outside of Hollywood’s traditional studio system at the time, allowing Lansbury to sink her teeth into a much meatier role than the smaller supporting characters she was consistently cast as she did in the previous decade with MGM. Lansbury is beautiful in A life at stake as the wily femme fatale Doris Hillman, who begins an affair with a man caught in her real estate scam. She is sexy, dangerous and dominant in this dark independent film.
7/9 Mrs Santa Claus
A Christian and all round sweet and kind woman, Lansbury took part in several Christmas films and projects (Mickey’s Magical Christmas, Buttons: A Christmas Tale, The Grinch, The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story), but her made-for-TV movie Mrs Santa Claus is probably the biggest and arguably the weirdest. A lavish musical period piece with Emmy nominations for all its meticulous visuals (hair and makeup, art direction, choreography, costume design), Mrs Santa Claus featured a 70 year old Lansbury who delivered a snappy, snappy and excellent performance.
Lansbury plays the titular wife of Santa Claus in the early 20th century. Tired of her bloated husband’s preoccupation with the hustle and bustle of Christmas, Mrs. Claus takes the sleigh out on her own, only to crash into New York. Stranded, she is taken in by a family of Jewish immigrants and begins to spread joy in her community, eventually joining the women’s suffrage movement and becoming an activist to end child labour. Again, it’s a weird story that unites the Christmas spirit with secular humanism, political action and women’s rights, and Lansbury is selling the whole thing. Moreover, she sings her heart out in the great soundtrack of this film by the composer of Hello, Dollie!
6/9 The company of wolves
Neil Jordan’s masterful, surreal, Freudian take on the Little Miss Riding Hood story, The company of wolves is a beautifully gothic horror fantasy in which Lansbury most stars as the grandmother in the woods. With her wise attitude and well-considered phrasing, she becomes the common thread through the film with the stories she tells to her grandmother. Her dark warnings coupled with maternal affection are curiously memorable and ensure that Lansbury would become the favorite granny everyone wished they’d had.
5/9 Death on the Nile
Death on the Nile is the strong and equally star-studded sequel to the huge success of 1974 Murder on the Orient Express. In this 1978 version of Agatha Christie’s classic, Peter Ustinov plays the famous detective Hercule Poirot alongside Maggie Smith, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow, David Niven, Jack Warden, Jane Birkin and George Kennedy. While a much smaller supporting role than her Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack’dLansbury plays the Christie character Salome Otterbourne, proving for the first time that she fit perfectly into the atmosphere of an intelligent, light-murder mystery.
4/9 Bed knobs and broomsticks
One of Disney’s underrated 70s movies, Bed knobs and broomsticks is a delightful and often surreal hybrid of live-action and animation, based on children’s books from the 1940s The magic bed knob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons and Bonfires and Broomsticks by Mary Norton. With Oscar-winning visual effects, the film feels like a much lighter, brighter and friendlier version of Forbidden Games or The Labyrinth of Panthose movies that use elaborate imaginations to sublimate the horrors children experience in wartime.
Bed knobs and broomsticks follows a group of children in 1940, while England was deep in World War II, who are sent to Pepperinge Eye in the care of Miss Price (a matriarchal, grandiose Lansbury in perfect form), who turns out to be a witch in training. In what has become a cult classic, counterpoint to the more gooey and normal Mary Poppins, the film follows their adventurous escapades, including magic beds, underwater dance competitions, Nazis and much more. It’s a crazy wild ride and Lansbury is a real delight.
3/9 Dorian Gray’s photo
In this great adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s timeless tale, a man cheats death and never ages as his painted portrait in his place. It’s a seemingly simple concept, but Wilde imbued it with great characters, deep philosophy and dark melancholy, attributes that writer/director Albert Lewin used perfectly in his beautiful film (although the censorship severely damaged the ending).
Lansbury plays Sibyl Vane, the long-suffering fiancée of the titular character in Dorian Gray’s photo. Though she was barely 20 at the time, the actress proved her greatness (earning her the film’s only acting awards and nominations), bringing heartbreaking pathos to the character. Cinematographer Harry Stradling, who won an Oscar for his work here, perfectly captures the emotionality of Lansbury’s features.
2/9 Manchuria candidate
Arguably the darkest, most vicious role she’s ever played (one that doesn’t match her public image), Lansbury is ice cold as the truly evil character Eleanor Iselin in the original 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate. One of the greatest political thrillers of all time, the classic John Frankenheimer film follows Korean War veterans brainwashed to act on behalf of the Soviet Union and China.
Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Janet Leigh star in The Manchurian Candidate, a perfectly made film that still sends chills down the spine of viewers 60 years after its release. It’s a true testament to Lansbury’s prowess that, when this film was remade in 2004, not even the great Meryl Streep (who played the same role) could rival Lansbury’s hypnotic Oscar-nominated performance.
1/9 Murder she wrote
While this article has hopefully proven just how diverse and phenomenal Lansbury’s 80-year career has been, it’s clear that the actress was best known and acclaimed internationally for her much-loved character Jessica Fletcher in Murder she wrote. After gradually mastering the murder mystery genre, Lansbury was sent the scripts for this classic TV series when Jean Stapleton (for whom the role was actually written) dropped out of the project – not offensive to Stapleton, but thank goodness, because the rest is history.
The show followed mystery author Jessica Fletcher as she becomes an amateur detective in the small Maine town of Cabot Cove (which apparently has more crime than anywhere else in the world). The incongruity of a sweet elderly woman who outsmarted both criminals and police with her creative imagination, wit and command of English was simply delightful and captivated audiences around the world. It is touching that Lansbury’s son directed 68 episodes of the show.
What seems like a small, cute premise actually became a cultural phenomenon due to Lansbury’s clever writing and impeccable execution, peaking at 40 million weekly viewers and, even by season 11, still reaching 25 million weekly. Murder she wrote was in the top ten most-watched TV shows for eight seasons, and even when it ended in 1996, it was popular enough to return for the next eight years with four wonderful TV movies, each drawing more than 10 million viewers live. Angela Lansbury earned her immortality here, and although she left this mortal spiral at age 96, she will always be part of our culture.