Angela Lansbury, Broadway luminary and 'Murder, She Wrote' star, dies at 96 - The Washington Post

Her household announced the decease successful a connection but did not mention a cause.

“Murder, She Wrote” — with its opening montage of Ms. Lansbury pecking astatine a typewriter and facing down information successful a coastal Maine municipality — was 1 of the astir fashionable TV shows of the 1980s and 1990s. To tens of millions of viewers, the seasoned histrion with a hint of a British accent personified Jessica Fletcher, the widow-turned-detective whose genteel mode masked her wits.

To a younger generation, Ms. Lansbury was champion remembered arsenic the dependable of Mrs. Potts, the tenderhearted teapot who sings the Oscar-winning rubric opus successful the animated Disney diagnostic “Beauty and the Beast” (1991).

Such cherished performances whitethorn person suggested that Ms. Lansbury was a specializer successful plucky, non-threatening roles. Yet implicit 7 decades successful amusement business, she had 2 earlier and chiseled phases of her vocation — on-screen and past connected Broadway — successful which she revealed herself arsenic an creator of immense scope and power.

“Hardly anyone tin lucifer her vocation for success, longevity and variety,” said movie student Jeanine Basinger.

In her teens, Ms. Lansbury earned Oscar nominations for supporting roles successful her archetypal 2 movie appearances: arsenic an impudent and seductive Cockney maid successful “Gaslight” (1944) and arsenic a sweetly guiltless music-hall vocalist successful “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1945). In the latter, her precocious and airy dependable was utilized to poignant effect successful the ditty “Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird,” forecasting her ain doom.

Ms. Lansbury had photogenic features: peaches-and-cream skin, bluish eyes and a blond mane. To her dismay, she ne'er made the leap into starring roles, successful portion due to the fact that she lacked the ethereal and glamorous beingness of a 1940s star.

She could enactment years, adjacent decades, beyond her property and settled into a agelong tally of scolding and ruthless quality roles other much-older starring men specified arsenic Walter Pidgeon (“If Winter Comes” successful 1947) and Spencer Tracy (“State of the Union” successful 1948).

Later, Ms. Lansbury was the movie parent to performers marginally her junior: Elvis Presley successful “Blue Hawaii” (1961), Warren Beatty successful “All Fall Down” (1962) and Laurence Harvey successful “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962). Presley, she aboriginal said, “used to nonstop maine Mother’s Day cards.”

In “The Manchurian Candidate,” based connected Richard Condon’s caller astir Cold War paranoia, she played a domineering governmental woman and parent who helps transportation retired a communist crippled to instrumentality implicit the White House, successful portion by manipulating her son into serving arsenic an assassin.

“Lansbury creates a modern-age Lady Macbeth with the accomplishment of a sorceress,” professional Peter Travers wrote successful People mag upon the film’s 1988 rerelease. “It’s an astonishing, engulfing performance.”

The film, besides starring Frank Sinatra, is present regarded arsenic a taut classic. But connected its archetypal release, it flopped astatine the container bureau and did small to beforehand Ms. Lansbury’s career, contempt having brought the histrion her 3rd and last Oscar nomination.

“Everyone kept telling me, ‘You’re a shoo-in,’ and I sat determination with my code prepared,” she told her biographer, Martin Gottfried. When Patty Duke won for playing Helen Keller successful “The Miracle Worker,” Ms. Lansbury continued, “it was similar your tummy has fallen retired of your body. It bothered maine desperately.”

Tired of playing unsympathetic oregon over-the-hill women — “I’ve played truthful galore aged hags astir radical deliberation I’m 65 years old,” she quipped astatine 41 — she turned to theatre work.

On Broadway, Ms. Lansbury received six Tony Awards, including 4 for champion histrion successful a philharmonic and 1 for beingness achievement. Her archetypal triumph recognized her show arsenic a bohemian socialite caring for her orphaned nephew successful Jerry Herman’s philharmonic drama “Mame” (1966). The amusement brimmed with chorus boys and flamboyant costumes and provided Ms. Lansbury with the showstopper “It’s Today.”

In Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” (1979), a brooding and dissonant “musical thriller,” Ms. Lansbury garnered a Tony arsenic a London piebaker who becomes an accessory to execution and cannibalism.

She collected a Tony for her starring relation successful the 1969 Herman philharmonic and anti-capitalist satire “Dear World.” As the forceful signifier mother Mama Rose, she won again for “Gypsy,” a 1974 revival of the Sondheim-Jule Styne-Arthur Laurents philharmonic that allowed her to reinvent with nuance and subtlety a portion that had all-but-been defined for years by the Broadway belter Ethel Merman.

Ms. Lansbury’s last competitory triumph — for champion featured histrion successful a play — was for “Blithe Spirit,” a 2009 revival of the Noel Coward drama successful which she played a dotty clairvoyant.

For each her movie and signifier work, it was connected tv that Ms. Lansbury, nearing 60, became a household sanction with “Murder, She Wrote” connected CBS. Her quality was canny but understated, upbeat but not Pollyannaish, bemused but not cynical.

“She embraced the conception of being a middle-aged pistillate who was a widow and lived successful a tiny town,” Basinger said, noting the show’s scope from scary to comic to sentimental. “She didn’t effort to glamorize it oregon deviate from it. The amusement would not person been a occurrence with anyone else.”

The Jessica Fletcher role, initially turned down by “All successful the Family” prima Jean Stapleton, brought Ms. Lansbury 12 Emmy nominations. “Murder, She Wrote” drew mostly older viewers who tuned successful to spot long-ago movie stars specified arsenic June Allyson, Kathryn Grayson and Hurd Hatfield arsenic execution suspects successful the play crippled lines. Ms. Lansbury had known galore of the actors from her formative years astatine Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer — lone this clip she was the headliner.

After 11 seasons, ratings plummeted when, successful an effort to gully younger viewers, CBS moved the programme from its longtime Sunday nighttime spot to Thursdays. Forced to vie with shows similar “Friends” connected NBC, “Murder, She Wrote” was canceled.

“It was truly a fluke occurrence and came astatine a clip erstwhile that benignant of household amusement seemed needed,” Ms. Lansbury told the New York Times. “The quality was precise calming.”

Angela Brigid Lansbury was calved successful London connected Oct. 16, 1925. Her paternal grandfather, George Lansbury, became person of England’s Labour Party successful the 1930s. Her father, Edgar, was a businessman, and her parent was a signifier and movie histrion known arsenic Moyna Macgill.

Her parents divorced, and Angela was 9 erstwhile her stepfather died from cancer. Movies became a refuge, she said. Her parent made definite she and her 3 siblings had soft and creation lessons.

Fleeing the German blitz during World War II, the household came to New York successful 1940 and aboriginal settled successful Los Angeles, wherever Macgill utilized her contacts among Britons successful the movie colony to find acting enactment for herself and Angela. At 17, Ms. Lansbury won a surface trial astatine MGM, which led to roles successful “Gaslight” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

Continuing successful supporting parts, she played the older sister to Elizabeth Taylor successful “National Velvet” (1944) and to Hedy Lamarr’s Delilah successful Cecil B. DeMille’s biblical epic “Samson and Delilah” (1949). She besides was a saloon dance-hall queen successful the philharmonic “The Harvey Girls” (1946), starring Judy Garland.

Studio executives declined to springiness Ms. Lansbury starring roles she coveted, specified arsenic the wily Lady de Winter successful “The Three Musketeers” (1948), a relation that went to Lana Turner. Ms. Lansbury played the queen of France.

“I had the quality but I didn’t person the name,” she remarked. “I was each endowment and nary looks.”

Sensing a downward vocation trajectory, Ms. Lansbury yet negotiated a merchandise from her MGM contract. As a freelancer, she played a princess successful the Danny Kaye drama “The Court Jester” (1954), Orson Welles’s blowzy person successful “The Long, Hot Summer” (1958) and a bid of overbearing parent and woman roles successful the 1960s.

Ms. Lansbury grew truthful bushed of unpleasant oregon sinister parts that she turned down manager Milos Forman’s connection to play Nurse Ratched successful “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), a relation for which Louise Fletcher won the Oscar for champion actress.

For the remainder of her surface career, Ms. Lansbury vowed to play likable characters, from the apprentice witch successful Disney’s “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” (1971) to a nine matron successful the Jim Carrey drama “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” (2011).

Broadway afloat showcased the expanse of her abilities. She proved a deft farceuse successful “Hotel Paradiso” (1957), featuring the comic large Bert Lahr, and played a vulgar parent successful “A Taste of Honey” (1960), a play with Joan Plowright arsenic her large and abandoned daughter.

Ms. Lansbury’s philharmonic theatre debut came successful “Anyone Can Whistle” (1964), a Laurents and Sondheim philharmonic successful which she was the imperious politician of a seedy town. Critics loathed the amusement — uncovering its absurdist satire and nonconformist taxable excessively clever by fractional — and it ran lone 9 performances.

But 1 ticket-buyer, composer Jerry Herman, loved it and became Ms. Lansbury’s champion for his amusement “Mame.” She spent 2 years successful the role, which transformed her into a theatrical star.

A bid of demanding musicals, particularly “Sweeney Todd” other Len Cariou successful the rubric role, cemented her estimation arsenic a consummate professional, capable to conjure a bonkers music-hall tone with tunes specified arsenic “The Worst Pies successful London” and “By the Sea.”

Ms. Lansbury’s accolades included the National Medal of Arts successful 1997 and the Kennedy Center Honors successful 2000. In 2013, she received an honorary Oscar and was made a Dame of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

In summation to the struggles of her career, Ms. Lansbury spoke openly astir complications successful her idiosyncratic life. She had a little aboriginal matrimony to histrion Richard Cromwell, who she said was gay. In 1949, she wed Peter Shaw, who became a apical endowment agent. She said their 2 children, Deirdre and Anthony, developed cause problems, starring the household to permission their location successful Malibu, Calif., and walk overmuch of the 1970s successful County Cork, Ireland, to enactment astatine a region from what she said was the antagonistic power of Hollywood.

Shaw died successful 2003. In summation to her 2 children, survivors see a stepson, David Shaw; a brother; 3 grandchildren; and 5 great-grandchildren.

In interviews, Ms. Lansbury played down her hard-charging ambition and said she considered herself a “journeyman actor” who had gotten lucky.

“I conscionable did what was handed to maine but the things that were handed to maine were rather extraordinary,” she told the Sunday Express successful 2014. “I person an inordinate magnitude of energy, and I’ve got to expend it somehow. I ever accidental determination are 2 things successful beingness that I cognize however to bash — 1 is to support location and the different 1 is to act.

“And acting usually takes precedence, truthful the spot is simply a spot messy astatine times.”