Angela Lansbury

Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury, actress
Born	Angela Brigid Lansbury (1925-10-16) 16 October 1925 (age 86) Poplar, London, England
Nationality	English
Occupation	Actress, Singer, Television Producer, Writer
Years active	1943-present
Known for	Murder She Wrote, Mame, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Beauty and the Beast
Spouse	Richard Cromwell (1945–46; divorced) Peter Shaw (1949–2003; his death); 2 children

Angela Brigid Lansbury, CBE (born 16 October 1925) is an English-born US-naturalized actress and singer in theatre, television, and motion pictures. Her career has spanned eight decades and earned an unsurpassed number of performance Tony Awards (tied with Julie Harris), with five wins. Her first film appearance was in the film Gaslight (1944) as a conniving maid, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Among her other films are The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Anastasia (1997).

She expanded her repertoire to Broadway musicals and television in the 1950s and was particularly successful in Broadway productions of Gypsy, Mame and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Lansbury is perhaps best known to modern audiences for her twelve-year run starring as writer and sleuth Jessica Fletcher on the American television series Murder, She Wrote (1984–1996). Her recent roles include Lady Adelaide Stitch in the film Nanny McPhee (2005), Leona Mullen in the 2007 Broadway play Deuce, Madame Arcati in the 2009 Broadway revival of the play Blithe Spirit and Madame Armfeldt in the 2010 Broadway revival of the musical A Little Night Music.

Lansbury has won five Tony Awards, six Golden Globes, and has been nominated for numerous other industry awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress on three occasions, and nineteen Emmy Awards.

Early life

Lansbury was born in Poplar, London, to Northern Irish-born actress Moyna MacGill and timber merchant and politician Edgar Lansbury, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and former mayor of the London Borough of Poplar.^[1] Her paternal grandfather was the Labour Party leader George Lansbury.^[2] She is the elder sister of twins Edgar Lansbury and Bruce Lansbury, both producers,^[2] and a cousin of the late English animator and puppeteer Oliver Postgate. Another cousin was the academic and novelist Coral Lansbury, whose son is former Australian federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull.^[3]

Her earliest theatrical influences were the teenaged actress Deanna Durbin, screen star Irene Dunne and Lansbury's mother, who encouraged her daughter's ambition by taking her to plays at the Old Vic.^{[citation needed]} She attended South Hampstead High School for Girls, the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art from 1939–40, and the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York from 1940-42.^[4] Following her father's death from stomach cancer in 1934,^[2] 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 fist.^{[citation needed]}

Just prior to the London Blitz, Lansbury's mother took her children to New York City. They arrived in NY on August 25, 1940. When her mother settled in Hollywood following a tour of a Noël Coward play, Lansbury (and later her brothers) joined her there.^[5] Lansbury worked at the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles.^[6] At one of the parties that her mother hosted for British émigré performers in their Laurel Canyon home, Lansbury met the casting director for the upcoming film Gaslight (1944), and he offered her the part of Nancy Oliver, Ingrid Bergman's conniving maid. This was the 18-year-old Lansbury's first film role.^[6] She was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar^[6] and the following year gained another nomination for her performance as the doomed Sibyl Vane in the film The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).^[6]

Career

Theatre

Angela Lansbury in Deuce, New York City, 2007

On Broadway, Lansbury first appeared in the plays Hotel Paradiso (1957) and A Taste of Honey (1960). Her first musical was the short-lived Anyone Can Whistle (1964) by Stephen Sondheim.^[7]

In 1966, she played the title role in the musical Mame, Jerry Herman's musical adaptation of the novel Auntie Mame. Mame opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in May 1966, with Stanley Kauffmann writing in the New York Times, "Miss Lansbury is a singing-dancing actress, not a singer or dancer who also acts...In this marathon role she has wit, poise, warmth, and a very taking coolth."^[8] Lansbury received her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical.^[9][10]

Lansbury won her second Tony Award for her performance in Dear World (1969).^[11] In 1971, Lansbury was cast in the title role in the musical Prettybelle. After a difficult rehearsal period, the show opened to brutal reviews in tryouts in Boston, where it closed within a week.^[12][13] In 1982, a recording of the show was released by Varèse Sarabande.^[14]

In 1973, the first revival of Gypsy opened in London's West End, with Lansbury starring as Rose.^[15] In September 1974, the same production opened at Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre.^[15] Lansbury received her third Tony for her performance in Gypsy.^[11] In December 1975, she portrayed Gertrude in the Royal National Theatre, London, production of Hamlet, directed by Peter Hall.^[16]

During the summer of 1976, she repeated the title role in Mame at The Muny, St. Louis, Missouri. She was a three-week replacement for the role of Anna in the Broadway revival of The King and I in April 1978.^[17][18]

Lansbury starred as Mrs. Lovett in the original 1979 production of Stephen Sondheim's musical thriller Sweeney Todd. The New York Times reviewer noted that "Her songs ... are awesomely difficult and she does them awesomely well. Her voice is a visible voice; you can follow it amid any confusion".^[19] She later played the role in the first U.S. tour, from 1980 to 1981,^[20] which was taped for television while playing in Los Angeles and broadcast on September 12, 1982.^[21] She won another Tony Award for Actress in a Musical for this role.^[22][23]

Signing autographs for fans after performing in Blithe Spirit, 2009.

She had been cast in the lead role in the 2001 Kander and Ebb musical The Visit, but she withdrew from the show before it opened because of her husband's declining health.^[24] Lansbury returned to Broadway after an absence of twenty-three years in Deuce, a play by Terrence McNally. The play opened at the Music Box Theatre in May 2007 in a limited run of eighteen weeks.^[25] Lansbury received a nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her role.^[11]

She played the role of Madame Arcati in the 2009 Broadway revival of Blithe Spirit, at the Shubert Theatre in March 2009. The New York Times praised her performance,^[26] for which she won several awards, including the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play (her fifth Tony, tying her with Julie Harris, although all of Harris's wins were as Best Actress).^[27]

Lansbury starred as Madame Armfeldt in the first Broadway revival of A Little Night Music, which opened in December 2009 at the Walter Kerr Theatre.^[28] She left the show on June 20, 2010. For this role, she received a 2010 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, but lost to Katie Finneran.^[11]

Film and television

Lansbury in a scene from MGM's Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), one of her earliest film appearances.

Lansbury has enjoyed a long and varied career, sometimes in roles older than her actual age. ^[6] She appeared in films such as Gaslight (1944), National Velvet (1944), The Harvey Girls (1946), Samson and Delilah (1949), Blue Hawaii (1961, co-starring Elvis Presley) and Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). She had a prominent supporting role in the 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate in which she portrayed the malicious Mrs. Iselin. She received acclaim for her performance, several industry awards and an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress.^[29][30] Lansbury also starred in several dramas before and during her years of Broadway success, including The World of Henry Orient (1964) and Something for Everyone (1970).^[29]

Lansbury received her much coverage in the media because of her popularity from, and association with, Mame on Broadway in the 1960s. She used her fame to benefit humanitarian causes. For example, when appearing as a guest on the Sunday night CBS-TV show What's My Line?, she made a plea for viewers to contribute to the 1966 Muscular Dystrophy Association fund-raising drive, chaired by Jerry Lewis.^[31]

Lansbury in the trailer for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

After many years performing mostly on the stage, Lansbury returned to film in Death on the Nile (1978) and then portrayed Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd (1980). She began doing character voice work in the years that followed in animated films such as The Last Unicorn (1982) and Anastasia (1997), and as the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in the 1991 Disney hit, Beauty and the Beast, in which she performed the title song.^[29] She reprised this role in Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) and in the video game Kingdom Hearts II (2006). Lansbury made her first theatrical film appearance since The Company of Wolves (1984) as Aunt Adelaide in Nanny McPhee in 2005.

Lansbury starred opposite Laurence Olivier in a BBC adaptation of the Broadway play, A Talent for Murder (1983), which she described as "a rushed job" in which she participated solely to work with Olivier.^[32] Afterwards, Lansbury continued to work in the mystery genre and achieved fame as mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher on the U.S. television series Murder, She Wrote (1984–96).^[29] It became one of the longest-running detective drama series in television history.^[33] She assumed ownership of the series and acted as executive producer for the last four seasons. Her brother Bruce became the supervising producer, her son Anthony and step-son David were executive producers, and her husband assisted in running the production company, Corymore Productions.^[33]

On July 5, 1986, she co-hosted (with Kirk Douglas) the New York Philharmonic's tribute to the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, which was televised live on ABC Television.^[34]

Although she was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, she has never won; nor did she win any of the eighteen Emmy Awards for which she was nominated over a thirty-three-year period. She holds the record for the most Primetime Emmy losses by a performer,^[35] Reflecting on this in 2007, she stated that she was at first "terribly disappointed, but subsequently very glad that [she] did not win", because she believes that she would have otherwise had a less successful career.^[36] However, she has received Golden Globe^[37] and People's Choice awards for her television and film work.^[38]

Lansbury co-starred in Mr. Popper's Penguins, opposite Jim Carrey, released in June 2011.^[39] She is also scheduled to appear in another film, Adaline.^[40]

Writing

She has written books including co-authoring, with Mimi Avins, Angela Lansbury's Positive Moves – My Personal Plan for Fitness and Well-Being (1990).^[41]

Personal life

Lansbury with her children in 1957.

In 1945, Lansbury married American actor Richard Cromwell when he was 35 and she was 19. Cromwell was bisexual,^[42] and the marriage dissolved after a year, but the two reportedly remained friends. In 1949, Lansbury married British-born actor and businessman Peter Shaw. She had two children, Anthony Peter Shaw (born January 7, 1952) and Deidre Angela Shaw (born April 26, 1953). Shaw was instrumental in guiding and managing Lansbury's career. They were married for 54 years until his death in January 2003.^[43]

Lansbury became a naturalized US citizen in 1951.^[44]

She is the mother of two, stepmother of one and a grandmother. A fire destroyed the family's Malibu home in September 1970, prompting a move to a rural area of County Cork in Ireland.^[6] Her daughter and son-in-law, a chef, are restaurateurs in West Los Angeles.^[45] Her son Anthony Shaw, after a brief fling with acting, became producer/director of Murder, She Wrote and currently is a television executive and director.

Lansbury's half-sister Isolde was married to Peter Ustinov for some years, but they divorced in 1946.^[6] Lansbury and Ustinov appeared together once in Death on the Nile (1978). She is related by marriage to actress Ally Sheedy, ex-wife of her nephew David Lansbury.^[46] Both her brothers, twins Bruce and Edgar, are successful theatre producers: Edgar was instrumental in bringing Godspell to Broadway, and Bruce Lansbury was a television producer for such shows as The Wild Wild West and Mission: Impossible and Murder, She Wrote.

Lansbury was a long-time resident of Brentwood, a neighbourhood of Los Angeles, California, where she supported various philanthropies. She had knee-replacement surgery on July 14, 2005. She had two hip replacement surgeries.^[47] In 2006, she moved to New York City, purchasing a condominium at a reported cost of $2 million. The following year, she returned to Broadway in Deuce, opposite Marian Seldes.^[45] Lansbury's papers are housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.^[48]

Credits

Bibliography

Lansbury, Angela; Avins, Mimi (1990). Angela Lansbury's Positive Moves – My Personal Plan for Fitness and Well-Being. Delacorte Press (New York City). ISBN 978-0-385-30223-4.

Honours and awards

Tony Awards

Lansbury has won five Tony Awards, tying Julie Harris for the most any performer has received (although Harris has won six Tony Awards, one is a Special Tony Award):^[54]

• 1966 – Best Actress in a Musical for Mame
• 1969 – Best Actress in a Musical for Dear World
• 1975 – Best Actress in a Musical for Gypsy
• 1979 – Best Actress in a Musical for Sweeney Todd
• 2009 – Best Featured Actress in a Play for Blithe Spirit

In addition, she was nominated in 2007 for her leading role in the play Deuce for the Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play^[55] and in 2010 for her featured role in the revival of the musical A Little Night Music for the Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical.^[56][57]

Awards and recognition

• Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year (1968)
• George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, UCLA Spring Sing, 1988 ^[58]
• In 1994, Queen Elizabeth appointed her a Commander of the Order of the British Empire "for services to the dramatic arts."^[59]
• In 1995, she was given the Disney Legend award.^[60]
• In 1996, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television.^[61]
• Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award (1996)
• Television Critics Association Awards — Career Achievement Award (1996)
• In 1997, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.^[62]
• She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for film (North side of the 6600 block of Hollywood Boulevard) and one for television (West side of the 1500 block of Vine Street).^[63]
• She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000.^[64]
• The New Dramatists Lifetime Achievement Award (2000)^[65]
• The Acting Company's First Lifetime Achievement Award (2002).^[66]
• BAFTA Awards – Britannia Award for Lifetime Achievement (2003)
• The Actor's Fund of America Lifetime Achievement (2004)^[67]
• The Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa degree from the University of Miami (2008). She was also the guest speaker at the commencement ceremony.^[68]
• Drama League Awards – The Unique Contribution to the Theatre Award (2009)
• Drama League Honors (2010)^[69]
• Signature Theatre Sondheim Award (2010)^[70]
• Honorary Chairman of the American Theatre Wing (2010)^[71]
• Inductee, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame

See also

	Biography portal
	Film portal
	Musical Theatre portal
	Theatre portal
	Television portal

• List of American film actresses
• List of American television actresses
• List of British actors and actresses
• List of people from Los Angeles
• List of people from New York City
• List of people from Tower Hamlets

References

Further reading

• Edelman, Rob; Kupferberg, Audrey E. (1996). Angela Lansbury, A life on stage and screen. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Corporation. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/1-55972-327-5|1-55972-327-5]]. 
• Gottfried, Martin (1999). Balancing Act: The Authorized Biography of Angela Lansbury. New York: Little, Brown & Company. ISBN 0-316-32225-3. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Angela Lansbury

• Angela Lansbury at the Internet Broadway Database
• Angela Lansbury at the Internet Movie Database
• Angela Lansbury at the TCM Movie Database
• Angela Lansbury Archive of American Television Interview recorded 15 September 1998
• Angela Lansbury on American Theatre Wing's Downstage Center
• Angela Lansbury Collection at Boston University
• 2009 Michael Portantiere interview with Angela Lansbury by The Sondheim Review
• Literature on Angela Lansbury^{[dead link]}
• Angela Lansbury on TCM's Private Screenings with Robert Osborne