In October 2022, the world suffered a devastating loss when Dame Angela Lansbury passed away, just days before her 97th birthday. Angela was remembered all around the world for her incredible work in the entertainment industry, from the stage, film, television, and for her time with Disney. Let’s take a look at Angela’s incredible life on and off the screen.

Angela Lansbury. Image from: https://www.wfdd.org/story/fresh-air-weekend-remembering-angela-lansbury-new-yorker-critic-hua-hsu

Early years on film (1940-1950)

Born in London on October 16, 1925, Angela was brought into the world by her mother, an Irish actress by the name of Moyna Macgill, and her father, a politician named Edgar Lansbury. At the age of 15 in 1940, her family was affected by the events of World War II. They had to gather their belongings and evacuate London, taking a ship from Liverpool to the United States. A family in the US offered to house them, and Angela began living in New York. She had always had a fascination with acting, putting on small performances for her family with her sister when they were young, and so it felt natural for her to study acting while in New York. 2 years later, she made the move to Hollywood, to sign a contract with MGM.

Angela’s very first role was at the age of 19, playing Nancy in Gaslight (1944). The film was about a couple who moved into a home in which a murder had taken place 10 years prior, and her husband becomes obsessed with the home and with a secret. It is easy to see how this film could foreshadow her later work which would become what she was best known for, playing a mystery writer and amateur detective for homicide cases in Murder, She Wrote.

Angela Lansbury in Gaslight (1944). Image from: https://www.slashfilm.com/1049431/angela-lansburys-brilliant-acting-career-started-with-an-oscar-nomination-for-gaslight/

Her fame would rise in the 1940s as she continued to make films with MGM, including 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), Tenth Avenue Angel (1948), State of the Union (1948), The Three Musketeers (1948), The Red Danube (1949), Samson and Delilah (1949), and Kind Lady (1951). She starred alongside major names at the time, like Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Gene Kelly. Although she loved the security and stability of being under contract, she was also sometimes forced to play characters in movies she had little interest in. Angela’s contract with MGM would end in 1951 after the release of Kind Lady.

Angela Lansbury in Kind Lady (1951). Image from: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/14729/kind-lady/#overview

from film to television to the stage (1950-1980)

After her time with MGM, Angela began starring in television series and talk shows through the 1950s for select episodes. She spent time on General Electric Theater, an anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan, Four Star Playhouse as Joan Robinson and Mrs. Hallerton, and Stage 7 as Vanessa Peters. She then began to divide her time between television and movies, joining the cast of a handful of movies in the 1950s and 1960s. Typecasting became prevalent in her life at this time, as she was often cast as the older lady or as a mother. This is evident in her roles in Blue Hawaii starring Elvis Presley, playing Elvis’ mother, All Fall Down as Warren Beatty’s mother. and Laurence Harvey’s mother in The Manchurian Candidate, all in 1962.

Angela Lansbury in Blue Hawaii. Image from: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/14729/kind-lady/#overview

In 1952 she joined the national touring company of Remains To Be Seen and Affairs of the State. Remains To Be Seen was yet another project she was a part of that involved a murder mystery, well before she knew she would ever play the lead on a murder mystery show. She made her first official Broadway debut in 1957 in the original cast of Hotel Paradiso as Marcelle, the wife of an architect. In 1960 she joined the cast of A Taste of Honey, as, surprise surprise, the mother of a pregnant teenager.

Moving away from the more serious stage productions and into a more whimsical musical career, Angela was a part of the original cast of Anyone Can Whistle, by Stephen Sondheim. The show closed after just 12 previews, but it gave Angela a taste of how else she could expand her talents. This lead her to one of her most notable stage roles of all time, playing Mame Dennis in the musical Mame. On May 24, 1966, she would open the musical and leave that night after a roaring applause and exemplary reviews. Her performance in Mame would go down in history as one of her biggest success on the stage.

Angela Lansbury in Mame. Image from: https://playbill.com/article/look-back-at-angela-lansbury-in-the-original-broadway-production-of-mame

In the decade of the 70s, Angela slowed down a bit in taking work, but did not halt completely. Her children were going through struggles and she wanted to shift her focus to them, and her Malibu home had burned down. Herself, her husband Peter Shaw and their son Anthony would move to County Cork, Ireland, in a secluded place where her son could sober up. Ireland became one of the main stomping grounds for Lansbury, and she divided her time between her farmhouse life there and the hustle and bustle of Hollywood life.

murder, she wrote

By 1984, Angela was ready to jump back into television regularly, and CBS cast her as the lead in their new series titled Murder, She Wrote. She would play mystery writer and detective Jessica Fletcher, who would become involved in solving various murder cases across the United States. The series would premiere in September 1984, and would become an instant hit. It would run regularly every Sunday for the next 12 seasons, with the cast having to shoot everyday of the week. It would become one of the longest running television series in history, and would earn Lansbury significant popularity and 12 Emmy nominations.

During the shooting of the 5th season, Angela became tempted to take a step back from the show, and even consider retiring, as the schedule started to become a lot for her. She did start to appear less and less in each episode allowing supporting characters to take the spotlight briefly, but she returned in full swing in 1992 and also became an executive producer for the show. The final episode would air on May 19, 1996, after 264 episodes. She spent her 59th to 71st year as Jessica Fletcher.

Angela Lansbury celebrating 100 episodes of Murder, She Wrote. Image from: https://outsider.com/entertainment/murder-she-wrote-angela-lansbury-premieres-on-this-day-1984/

angela lansbury’s time with disney

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

Though Angela’s filmography with Disney is not a long list, the impact she left on her partnership with Disney will live on forever. Her first time working with Disney was on the 1971 film Bedknobs and Broomsticks, a whimsical, musical film that saw successes similar to Mary Poppins (1964). Bedknobs and Broomsticks also starred our very own George Banks, played by David Tomlinson, who returned to Disney to play Professor Emelius Browne. The movie was nominated for 5 Academy Awards, and won the award for Best Visual Effects, with the inclusion of animation in this live-action film. In 1998, Disney restored the old version and added over 20 minutes of footage to it that had been lost and discarded during the original production.

“It pleases me enormously that this film is going to be reshown. It was my passport to an entire generation of youngsters. Now those children are now grown up and they are showing Bedknobs and Broomsticks to their kids.”

— Angela Lansbury

Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Almost 20 years later, Angela would return to Disney to play one of the most famous teapots of all time. During the development of the animated film, Angela received a call from Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, asking her if she would like to play the role of a motherly teapot. They proceeded to play her a recording of the song “Beauty and the Beast”, which originally had more of a sharper, rock tone. Lansbury was intrigued by the idea of joining another Disney movie, so she decided to take the music and record her own version for Menken and Ashman, and see what they thought. It ended up being perfect for the story and for the character, and she was cast right away as the little warm character.

During the 25th anniversary panel for Beauty and the Beast, Angela recounted her time developing the character on her own and deciding on what tone of voice she would use, and she says she drew inspiration from a cook that she knew when she was younger in London named Beatrice. Her calm voice and demeanour would be the basis of how she would shape Mrs. Potts.

“Mrs. Potts became one of the most important characters that I ever portrayed in motion pictures.”

— Angela Lansbury

She would reprise her role as Mrs. Potts multiple times over several decades, one of which was in the direct-to-video sequel Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. She would also provide her voice in cameos in Fantasia 2000, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Magical Ballroom video game, Kingdom Hearts II video game, and Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse.

Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast. Image from: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/unresolved-questions-i-have-for-mrs-potts-from-beauty-and-the-beast

mary poppins returns (2018)

At the time of the development of the first Mary Poppins film in 1964, it was rumoured that Angela was up for the title role, but was beat by Julie Andrews. In 2018, director Rob Marshall decided to bring Angela onto his new sequel to the film, playing a very special character at the end of the movie. The Balloon Lady was a character taken from the P.L Travers books, and provided a practically perfect way to wrap up the story. According to USA Today, Marshall said that it was an obvious choice to have Angela have a part in the film, as she had a magic about her. She sang the final song in the film, “Nowhere To Go But Up”.

“There’s something a little bit mysterious and interesting about her, and that certainly appealed to me - mystery is my business as you know.”

— Angela Lansbury

Angela received the Disney Legend award 1995.

her final years and lifetime awards

Angela won 21 awards across her almost 8 decade career, and was nominated an additional 41 times. Of this exhaustive list, her awards included an Academy Honourary Award, 6 Tony Awards, 3 Drama Desk Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, 2 Outer Critics Circle Awards, 6 Golden Globes, 1 BAFTA Award and 1 SAG Award. She received many lifetime achievement awards from different organizations beginning in 1968, all the way up until her passing in 2022. In the year 2000, she became a Kennedy Center Honors recipient, and was appointed a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2014.

The above list of achievements is also reflective of the incredible philanthropic work she did, highlighting her work for the fight against AIDS, in which she raised over 1 million dollars for the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Her passion for AIDS research stemmed from the passing of her friend and Gypsy producer, Fritz Holt, who was affected by AIDS.

After completing Murder, She Wrote, she also starred in 3 spin-off TV movies called Murder, She Wrote: A Story to Die For, Murder, She Wrote: The Last Free Man, and Murder, She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle. Outside of the franchise and outside of Disney, Angela would be a part of 26 more television and movie projects. She would lend her voice to the role of Dowager Empress Marie in Fox’s Anastasia.

Angela’s final role would be in the 2022 film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, in which she played herself as a cameo, alongside legends Stephen Sondheim, Natasha Lyonne, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. We are grateful for the 80 years she dedicated to magic, mystery, and putting smiles on everyone’s faces.