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Member Number: 6416
Angela Lansbury CBE (born October 16, 1925) is a four-time Tony-winning, six-time Golden Globe-winning, three-time Oscar-nominated, and eighteen-time Emmy-nominated English actress. Her multi-faceted career has spanned seven decades, and she is well known for her roles on both stage and screen.
Early life
Born in London, Lansbury was the daughter of Belfast-born actress Moyna MacGill and Edgar Lansbury, a prominent businessman, and the granddaughter of the former Labour Party leader George Lansbury. Her earliest theatrical influences were teen-aged coloratura Deanna Durbin, screen star Irene Dunne, and her own mother, who encouraged her daughter's ambition by taking her to plays at the Old Vic and removing her from South Hampstead High School for Girls in order to enroll her in the Ritman School of Dancing and later the Webber-Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art.
After her father's death of stomach cancer, her mother became involved with a Scotsman named Leckie Forbes, and the two merged their families under one roof in Hampstead. A former colonel with the British Army in India, Forbes proved to be a jealous and suspicious tyrant who ruled the household with an iron hand. Just prior to the German bombing campaign of London, Lansbury's mother was presented with the opportunity to take her children to America, and under cover of dark of night they fled from their unhappy home and sailed for Montreal, from where they headed to New York City. When her mother settled in Hollywood following a fund-raising Canadian tour of a Noel Coward play, she (and later her brothers) joined her there.
As a struggling young actress, Lansbury worked at the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles. At one of the frequent parties her mother hosted for British emigré performers in their Laurel Canyon home, she met would-be actor Michael Dyne, who arranged for her to meet Mel Ballerino, the casting director for the upcoming film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Ballerino was casting Gaslight with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, as well, and he offered her the role of the impertinent and slightly malevolent maid Nancy. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her 1944 film debut, and the following year garnered another for her portrayal of Sibyl Vane in Dorian Gray.
Theatre career
On Broadway, Lansbury received good reviews from her first musical outing, the short-lived 1964 Stephen Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle, which co-starred Lee Remick. Two years later, she was offered what proved to be the biggest triumph of her theatrical career, the title role in Mame, Jerry Herman's musical adaptation of the novel and subsequent film Auntie Mame, which had starred Rosalind Russell. Opening at the Winter Garden Theater on May 24, 1966, Mame ran for 1508 performances. Lansbury's portrayal, opposite Bea Arthur as Vera Charles, earned her the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. She and Arthur became life-long friends.
Lansbury won additional Tony Awards for Dear World (1969), the first Broadway revival of Gypsy (1974), and her English music hall turn as affection-starved meat pie entrepreneuse Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim's ballad opera Sweeney Todd (1979). In a television interview with Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies aired in August 2006, Lansbury stated that, theatrically, she feels she would "most like to be remembered for this role." She also stated that this production was also a triumph and a comeback of sorts for Sondheim, whom she admires.
She also is a two-time winner of the Sarah Siddons Award (1975 and 1980) for dramatic achievement in Chicago theatre.
In 1971, Lansbury accepted the title role in the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill musical Prettybelle. After a difficult rehearsal period, the show opened to brutal reviews in Boston, where it closed within a week. In 1982 a recording of the show was released by Varese Sarabande which included most of the original cast and Lansbury's 11 o'clock number "When I'm Drunk, I'm Beautiful" along with "You Never Looked Better", a song that was cut early in the run.
Lansbury returned to the Broadway stage for the first time in more than 25 years in Deuce, a play by Terrence McNally, co-starring with Marian Seldes. The play previewed at the Music Box Theatre on April 11, 2007, and opened on May 6, 2007 in a limited run of 18 weeks. Lansbury received a Tony nomination in the category of Leading Actress in a Play for her role in this production, but did not win the Tony that year.
Film and television
Lansbury has enjoyed a long and varied career, mainly as a film actress in roles generally older than her actual age, appearing in everything from Samson and Delilah (1949) to Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Her notable credits include The Manchurian Candidate (1962) in which she played Mrs. Iselin, the cold-blooded mother of a war veteran brainwashed into becoming a Communist assassin. She won much critical praise for her chilling performance, and received her third Oscar nomination. (Lucille Ball had been considered for the role; a decade later, Ball coincidentally landed the title role in the film version of Mame, the role Lansbury had created on Broadway.) On CNN's Larry King Live, Lansbury said that her character in The Manchurian Candidate was her favorite of her many film roles.
Lansbury's popularity from and association with Mame on Broadway in the '60s had her very much in demand everywhere in the media. Ever the humanitarian, she used her fame as an opportunity to benefit others wherever possible. For example, when appearing as a guest panelist on the popular Sunday night CBS-TV show, What's My Line?, she made an impassioned plea for viewers to contribute to the 1966 Muscular Dystrophy Association fundraising drive, chaired by Jerry Lewis.
After many years focused on the theatre, Lansbury returned to film, playing Salome Otterbourne in Death on the Nile (1978). She was somewhat less successful as Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd (1980).
Lansbury then turned to character voice work in animated films like The Last Unicorn (1982) and as the Dowager Empress in the less well-received animated film Anastasia in 1997. Her most famous voice work was the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in the Disney hit Beauty and the Beast (1991), who performed the Oscar-winning title song written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. She reprised the role in the Disney/Square-Enix video game Kingdom Hearts II in 2006. In the same year, she appeared in Nanny McPhee as great aunt Adelaide.
While Lansbury has won every Tony for which she's been nominated, with the exception of her nomination for Deuce in 2007, she was less successful with the Oscars and Emmys. The Oscar has always eluded her, and Lansbury holds the record for the most primetime Emmy nominations (twelve) as Best Actress without a single win. Yet, she is the recipient of several other prominent awards, including the People's Choice and Golden Globe.
Lansbury found her biggest success and a worldwide following as Jessica Fletcher in the long-running television series, Murder, She Wrote (1984 - 1996), which was one of the longest running detective drama series in US TV history and made her one of the highest paid actresses in the world.
In the early 1990s, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom appointed her a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She was named a Disney Legend in 1995. She received a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997, Kennedy Center Honors in 2000, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Personal life
In 1945, Lansbury married American actor Richard Cromwell when she was 19 and he was 35. Unbeknownst to her, Cromwell was bisexual, and the marriage dissolved after a year, but the two remained friends.
In 1949, Lansbury married Irish-born actor and businessman Peter Shaw, who had been a former boyfriend of Joan Crawford. Shaw was instrumental in guiding and managing Lansbury's career. Until his death in 2003, Lansbury enjoyed one of the longest show-business marriages on record.
Lansbury is the mother of two, stepmother of one, and a grandmother several times over. In an interview with Barbara Walters, Lansbury revealed a firestorm that destroyed the family's Malibu home in September 1970 was a blessing in disguise, as it prompted a move to rural County Cork, Ireland, where her children were separated from the hard drugs with which they had been experimenting. Her son Anthony, after a brief fling with acting, became producer/director of Murder, She Wrote and presently is a television executive and director. Her daughter Deirdre and son-in-law, a chef, are restaurateurs in West Los Angeles.
Lansbury was related to the late Sir Peter Ustinov by her half-sister Isolde's marriage to the British actor (they divorced in 1946). The two former in-laws appeared together professionally just once, in 1978's Death on the Nile. Lansbury is related by marriage to actress Ally Sheedy, wife of her nephew David Lansbury. Both her twin brothers, Edgar and Bruce, are successful theater producers (Edgar Lansbury was instumental in bringing Godspell to Broadway, and Bruce Lansbury was also a television producer, notably for shows like Mission: Impossible).
Lansbury is a long-time resident of Brentwood, California, and supports various philanthropic groups in Southern California.
Lansbury had knee replacement surgery on July 14, 2005.
In 2006, Lansbury purchased a condominium in New York City at a reported cost of $2 million with her sights set on a return to Broadway.
Filmography
Features:
* 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)
* The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) (dubbed speaking voice of Ingrid Thulin)
* 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)
* Ingrid (1984) (documentary)
* The Company of Wolves (1984)
* Beauty and the Beast (1991) (voice)
* Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) (direct-to-video) (voice)
* Anastasia (1997) (voice)
* Fantasia 2000 (1999)
* Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)
* Nanny McPhee (2005)
Upcoming:
* Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age (2008) (documentary)
Short Subjects:
* Some of the Best (1949)
* Your Studio and You (1995)
Television credits
* Grannytram (1956)
* The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1965 episode 38 : The Deadly Toys Affair)
* The 22nd Tony Awards (1968)
* The 25th Tony Awards (1971)
* The Story of the First Christmas Snow (1975)
* Sweeney Todd (1982)
* Little Gloria... Happy at Last (1982)
* The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (1983)
* A Talent for Murder (1984)
* Lace (1984)
* The First Olympics: Athens 1896 (1984)
* The Murder of Sherlock Holmes (1984) (pilot for Murder, She Wrote)
* Murder, She Wrote (1984-1996)
* Magnum, P.I. - "Novel Connection" (1986) (appeared as character Jessica Fletcher)
* Rage of Angels: The Story Continues (1986)
* The 41st Tony Awards (1987)
* Shootdown (1988)
* The 42nd Tony Awards (1988)
* The Shell Seekers (1989)
* The 43rd Tony Awards (1989)
* The Love She Sought (1990)
* Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris (1992)
* Mrs. Santa Claus (1996)
* Murder, She Wrote: South by Southwest (1997)
* The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (1999)
* Murder, She Wrote: A Story to Die For (2000)
* Murder, She Wrote: The Last Free Man (2001)
* Murder, She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle (2003)
* The Blackwater Lightship (2004)
* Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2005) (guest appearance)
* Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005) (guest appearance)
* The 61st Tony Awards (2007)
* Agatha Christie's Poirot - "Appointment with Death" (2008)
Broadway productions
* Hotel Paradiso (Apr. - Jul. 1957)
* A Taste of Honey (Oct. 1960 - Sep. 1961)
* Anyone Can Whistle (Apr. 1964)
* Mame (May 1966 - Jan. 1969)
* Dear World (Feb. - May 1969)
* Gypsy (Sep. 1974 - Jan. 1975)
* The King and I (Substitute for several weeks, April 1978)
* Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Mar. 1979 - Jun. 1980)
* A Little Family Business (Dec. 1982)
* Mame (Jul. - Aug. 1983)
* Deuce (April - Aug. 2007)
Other Theatre
* Prettybelle (February 1971, Shubert Theatre, Boston)
* All Over (1972, Royal Shakespeare Company, London)
* Gypsy (May 29, 1973-March 2, 1974 - Piccadilly Theatre, London)
* Anyone Can Whistle (April 8, 1995, Benefit Concert)
* Short Talks on the Universe (Nov. 2002, Benefit)
* Oscar and the Pink Lady (Mar. 2006, Geffen Playhouse)
Awards and nominations
Academy Awards
Nominations
* Best Supporting Actress (Gaslight, 1945)
* Best Supporting Actress (The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1946)
* Best Supporting Actress (The Manchurian Candidate, 1963)
BAFTA Awards
Wins
* Britannia Award (Lifetime Achievement, 2003)
Nominations
* Best Supporting Actress (Death on the Nile, 1978)
Drama Desk Awards
Wins
* Outstanding Actress in a Musical, Sweeney Todd, (1979)
* Outstanding Actress in a Musical, Gypsy, (1975)
Nominations
* Outstanding Actress in a Musical, The King and I, (1978)
Emmy Awards
Nominations
* 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", 1985-1996 **12 Consecutive Nominations**)
* Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program ("The 43rd Annual Tony Awards", 1990)
* Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program ("The 41st Annual Tony Awards", 1987)
* Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program (Sweeney Todd, 1985)
* Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie (Little Gloria... Happy at Last, 1983)
Golden Globes
Wins
* 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)
Nominations
* 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)
Hasty Pudding Theatricals
Wins
* Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year (1968)
National Board of Review
Wins
* Best Supporting Actress (Death on the Nile, 1978)
* Best Supporting Actress (All Fall Down and The Manchurian Candidate, 1962)
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Wins
* Life Achievement Award (1996)
Tony Awards
Wins
* Best Actress in a Musical, Sweeney Todd, (1979)
* Best Actress in a Musical, Gypsy, (1975)
* Best Actress in a Musical, Dear World, (1969)
* Best Actress in a Musical, Mame, (1966)
Nominations
* Best Actress in a Play, Deuce (2007)
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Agnes Moorehead for Mrs. Parkington | Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture 1946 for The Picture of Dorian Gray | Succeeded by Anne Baxter for The Razor's Edge |
| Preceded by Rita Moreno for West Side Story | Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture 1963 for The Manchurian Candidate | Succeeded by Margaret Rutherford for The V.I.P.s |
| Preceded by Liza Minnelli in Flora the Red Menace | Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical 1966 for Mame | Succeeded by Barbara Harris in The Apple Tree |
| Preceded by Lauren Bacall | Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year 1968 | Succeeded by Carol Burnett |
| Preceded by Patricia Routledge in Darling of the Day Leslie Uggamsin Hallelujah, Baby! | Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical 1969 for Dear World | Succeeded by Lauren Bacall in Applause |
| Preceded by Virginia Capers in Raisin | Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical 1975 for Gypsy | Succeeded by Donna McKechnie in A Chorus Line |
| Preceded by Liza Minnelli in The Act | Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical 1979 for Sweeney Todd | Succeeded by Patti LuPone in Evita |
| Preceded by Jane Wyman for Falcon Crest | Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Drama 1985 for Murder, She Wrote | Succeeded by Sharon Gless for Cagney & Lacey |
| Preceded by Sharon Gless for Cagney & Lacey | Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Drama 1987 for Murder, She Wrote | Succeeded by Susan Dey for L.A. Law |
| Preceded by Jill Eikenberry for L.A. Law | Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Drama 1990 for Murder, She Wrote | Succeeded by Sharon Gless for The Trials of Rosie O'Neill |
| Preceded by Patricia Wettig for thirtysomething | Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Drama 1992 for Murder, She Wrote | Succeeded by Regina Taylor for I'll Fly Away |
| Preceded by Robert Redford | Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award 1996 | Succeeded by Elizabeth Taylor |
Links
- Angela Lansbury at the Internet Movie Database
- Angela Lansbury at the TCM Movie Database
- Angela Lansbury at the Notable Names Database
- Angela Lansbury at the Internet Broadway Database
- Angela Lansbury at TV.com
- Archive of American Television Interview with Angela Lansbury in Sep 15,1998 on Google Video
- Angela Lansbury on American Theatre Wing's Downstage Center
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Angela Lansbury News and Information
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Star says Irish 'sanctuary' provided happiest years Irish Independent, Ireland - By Ralph Riegel VETERAN Hollywood actress and Murder She Wrote TV star, Angela Lansbury, has admitted Ireland was "the sanctuary" her family needed after a ... |
Best Movie Villains Blogging with Bill White, PA - Mrs. Iselin (Angela Lansbury, Manchurian Candidate). Most of you know Lansbury as the likeable amateur detective from “Murder She Wrote,” but this character ... |
 New York Daily News | Slack plot takes the mystery out of 'Prudence' Boston Globe, United States - ... cultivating the uncanny instinct for crime-solving of Angela Lansbury's Jessica Fletcher, and able to pour on the va-va-voom of Jessica Rabbit when she ... Jane Seymour part of sweet formula in 'Dear Prudence' |
 Broadway World | 'Hello, Dolly!' ... 'Mame' ... 'La Cage Aux Folles' FOXBusiness - 'Dear World' features Angela Lansbury (who won her second Tony for her performance), Jane Connell, Carmen Mathews, Milo O'Shea, Kurt Peterson, ... "It's Today": Milk and Honey, La Cage and London Hello, Dolly ... 'Hello, Dolly!' ... 'Mame' ... 'La Cage Aux Folles' |
 Ottawa Citizen | Going Out (Part 1 of 2) Ottawa Citizen, Canada - The Music of Angela Lansbury Dinner Theatre: Today and Thursday to Aug. 30 at Banquet Hall, Woodroffe United Church, 207 Woodroffe Ave. ... |
411's AWA on ESPN Classic Report 08.22.08 411mania.com, TX - Lee Marshall talks about the Hangmen and their tights and how he thought that he had solved the mystery like Angela Lansbury. Verne calls her one of his ... |
Frank Rich Calls White Americans Who Won’t Follow Barry “Doltish” Stop the ACLU, PA - ... whether Baghdad or Tehran or Moscow, and McCain gets with the program as if Angela Lansbury has just dealt him the Queen of Hearts. ... Despite Assurances Of Fairness, NY Times Lies |
 The Star-Ledger - NJ.com | Jerry Herman albums go digital The Star-Ledger - NJ.com, NJ - But four Herman hits will be well-represented: "Milk and Honey," the 1961 musical that ran well over a year; "Mame," another Angela Lansbury Tony-winner, ... |
 TheaterMania.com | Masterworks Broadway to Release Stephen Sondheim: The Story So Far ... TheaterMania.com, NY - Julie Andrews, Carol Burnett, Len Cariou, Barbara Cook, Dean Jones, Glynis Johns, Angela Lansbury, Madonna, Ethel Merman, Liza Minnelli, Zero Mostel, ... |
 The Sun | Delightful family film filled with lots of fun The Sun, UK - Classy support is provided by Angela Lansbury as batty Aunt Adelaide while Imelda Staunton is a picture of pantomime silliness as the fretful cook. ... |
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