Angela Lansbury
Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury (October 16, 1925 – October 11, 2022) was a British-American-Irish actress and singer. In a career spanning 80 years, she played various roles across stage and screen. She won numerous accolades including six Tony Awards, six Golden Globe Awards and a Laurence Olivier Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, 18 Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. She received two honorary BAFTA Awards in 1991 and 2013, the National Medal of the Arts in 1997, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2000, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2013. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2014.
Lansbury was born into an upper-middle-class family in central London, the daughter of Irish actress Moyna Macgill and English politician Edgar Lansbury. To escape the Blitz, she moved to the United States in 1940, studying acting in New York City. Proceeding to Hollywood in 1942, she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). During this time she established herself as a character actress earning three Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nominations for Gaslight (1944), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), and The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
She transitioned her career to Broadway, where she earned stardom as well as four Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical for playing the title roles in Mame (1966), Countess Aurelia in Dear World (1969), Mama Rose in Gypsy (1975), and Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (1978). She returned to Broadway playing Madame Arcati in the revival of Blithe Spirit (2009), winning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She was Tony-nominated for Deuce (2007) and A Little Night Music (2010). She won the Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 2022.
She achieved worldwide fame for portraying the sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the CBS whodunit series Murder, She Wrote (1984–1996), a role that earned her four Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for 12 Primetime Emmy Awards. In 1989, she co-created with her husband Peter Shaw, Corymore Productions, a company where she co-produced the series and served as an executive producer. She voiced roles in Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Anastasia (1997) and acted in the family films Nanny McPhee (2005) and Mary Poppins Returns (2018).
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