‘Murder, She Wrote’ actress Angela Lansbury dead at age 96

Oct 11 (Reuters) – Angela Lansbury, the British-born actress whose profession spanned eight many years and produced indelible portraits of a variety of characters from villainesses to sleuths and lightweight comedian roles in films, on stage and on tv, died at age 96, her household mentioned on Tuesday.

Lansbury, who performed a crime-solving thriller author within the long-running U.S. tv sequence “Homicide, She Wrote,” “died peacefully in her sleep” at dwelling in Los Angeles, in response to a press release from her kids.

The actress was simply 5 days shy of her 97th birthday, the assertion mentioned.

In films, Lansbury turned in riveting supporting performances, together with her movie debut as a teen taking part in the conniving Cockney maid in “Gaslight” in 1944, because the doomed Sibyl in “The Image of Dorian Grey” in 1945 and as Laurence Harvey’s evil, manipulative mom in “The Manchurian Candidate” in 1962. All three roles earned her Academy Award nominations.

Practically seven many years after her first movie, she was awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement at age 88 in November 2013. Academy Award winners Geoffrey Rush and Emma Thompson supplied a tribute to Lansbury on the ceremony.

Rush lauded her because the “dwelling definition of vary,” whereas Thompson recalled tossing a pie at Lansbury throughout the filming of the 2005 comedy “Nanny McPhee.”

“I really feel actually undeserving of this beautiful chap,” Lansbury mentioned, referring to the golden Oscar statuette she was given.

Her different film credit included “Nationwide Velvet” (1944), “The Darkish On the Prime of the Stairs” (1960), “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” (1971) and “The Mirror Crack’d” (1980).

Lansbury received 5 Tony awards for Broadway performances as the unique “Mame,” Gypsy Rose Lee’s mom Mama Rose in “Gypsy,” the baker of human meat pies in “Sweeney Todd,” Countess Aurelia in “Pricey World” and the clairvoyant Madame Arcati in “Blithe Spirit.”

Lansbury maintained a grueling performing schedule nicely into her 80s, showing on Broadway in 2012 in “The Greatest Man” with fellow octogenarian James Earl Jones.

Lansbury reached her broadest viewers in “Homicide, She Wrote” as retired English teacher-turned thriller author Jessica Fletcher, who week after week discovered herself on the scene of a murder. The sequence, which ran from 1984 to 1996, introduced her 11 of her 18 Emmy nominations. She by no means received an Emmy, nevertheless.

‘NOTHING LIKE A GOOD VILLAINESS’

Lansbury mentioned she most loved taking part in the rotter, such because the malevolent Eleanor Iselin, who pulls the levers on her brainwashed assassin-in-waiting son in “The Manchurian Candidate.”

“There’s nothing like a superb villainess,” she mentioned. “You may go to city and chew on nice chunks of surroundings.”

The position introduced Lansbury the perfect opinions of her profession. “Not because the heyday of Bette Davis had there been an actress of this vary and accomplishment,” wrote critic David Shipman.

Lansbury was born in London in 1925 and went to the US in 1940 to keep away from the battle along with her mom, actress Moyna McGill, who appeared in a number of Hollywood movies.

Lansbury studied drama and her film profession obtained off to a fast begin. She had an MGM contract her first three films had been “Gaslight,” “Nationwide Velvet,” through which she performed Elizabeth Taylor’s older sister, and “The Image of Dorian Grey.”

However competitors from different MGM starlets left Lansbury in smaller roles in such films as “The Harvey Ladies” (1946), “The Three Musketeers” (1948) and “Samson and Delilah” (1949).

In 1957, after a sequence of low-budget footage and day without work to have kids, she starred on Broadway in “Lodge Paradiso” with Burt Lahr, which rejuvenated her profession.

Returning to movie, she received applause as Orson Welles’ mistress in “The Lengthy Scorching Summer season” (1958), Robert Preston’s buddy in “The Darkish on the Prime of the Stairs” (1960), Elvis Presley’s mom in “Blue Hawaii” (1961) and Warren Beatty’s mom in “All Fall Down” (1962).”

In 1966, she turned Broadway’s reigning queen in “Mame.” Excessive reward continued for “Pricey World,” “Gypsy” and “Sweeney Todd.”

Lansbury additionally carried out on stage in England earlier than returning to such movies as “Dying on the Nile” (1978), “The Girl Vanishes” (1979) and “The Mirror Crack’d” (1980), through which she performed Agatha Christie’s spinster sleuth Miss Marple, and the movie musical “The Pirates of Penzance” (1983).

Lansbury, who lived in Los Angeles, married actor Richard Cromwell in 1945 however the union lasted lower than a yr. In 1949, she married Peter Shaw, who turned her supervisor and the daddy of her son, Anthony, and daughter, Deirdre. Shaw died in 2003.

Reporting by Tyler Clifford, Lisa Richwine and Will Dunham; enhancing by Jonathan Oatis

: .