Angela Lansubry, 1925-2022

Angela Lansbury in Gaslight (1944), which earned her an Oscar nomination

The death has been announced of actress Angela Lansbury, about a week shy of her 97th birthday. Lansbury had a long career starting off with a bang in Gaslight as the maid that Charles Boyer is interested in. It earned her an Oscar nomination, although she lost to Ethel Barrymore in None But the Lonely Heart. There's a "Word of Mouth" piece that TCM has run with Lansbury talking about those early days and saying it probably worked out for the best that she didn't win that Oscar, because there would have been a good chance it would have resulted in her being typecast.

Instead, she would continue to make a wide variety of films, as well as working on the stage, where she might be considered even more successful, since she won a handful of Tony awards. And then, when she was getting close to 60, she would turn to TV in what is probably one of the roles most 30- and 40-somethings would remember her for, that of mystery writer J.B. Fletcher on the series Murder, She Wrote. For us fans of old movies, Murder, She Wrote is interesting in that Lansbury brought in a bunch of her old friends from her early days in Hollywood to do guest roles on the show, and in one case, even worked the old movie Strange Bargain into the show, with the movie's three stars playing the same characters with scenes from the movie being used for flashbacks to the 1940s. The show led to the meme that Fletcher was really a serial killer since everywhere she went, another murder happened. And I've seen jokes that the murder rate in Cabot Cove just suddenly dropped. I'd like to think Lansbury got a kick out of those jokes.

While some younger people may remember Murder, She Wrote, others might recognize her voice from the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast, or other singing roles. Although these later roles gave Lansbury an image of the kindly grandmother type, she was a good enough actress that she has quite a few memorable roles as villains. I've already mentioned Gaslight, but there's also the 1950s remake of Kind Lady, as well as another memorable role, that of the evil mother in The Manchurian Candidate:

One other movie of hers that immediately sprung to my mind is a small role, but a key one as the woman Glenn Ford is supposed to be marrying in Dear Heart, at least until Ford meets Geraldine Page. It's the sort of movie that's really for more mature viewers, but a fine and underrated movie.

I haven't seen yet when TCM will be scheduling a programming tribute to Lansbury, but since she started her career at MGM and because of how well known she'd become, I'd guess that she'll get a substantial tribute.