As a small child, I would beg to stay up Sunday nights to watch Murder, She Wrote. I can remember being about seven years old and actually solving one of the crimes before mystery writer/amateur detective Jessica Fletcher revealed the answer (the bad guy had a red carnation in his buttonhole while everyone else had a white one). It wasn’t until I was much older that I learned about Dame Angela Lansbury’s extensive career far beyond the shores of Cabot Cove.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
The success of her very first film, Gaslight (1944), was quickly followed with The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) with George Saunders and Donna Reed. Set in late Victorian England, and based on the classic novel by Oscar Wilde, Lansbury plays the jilted lover of the unscrupulous Dorian Gray.
Her performance impressed both audiences and critics. She won a Golden Globe award and earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance.
The Harvey Girls
Lansbury, a native of England, fled with her mother and siblings during the Blitz. Their first stop was Montreal, Canada. Her mother found work in a touring show, while Angela sang popular songs at a club. She became comfortable in her ability to interpret song and dance on stage, as is evident in The Harvey Girls (1946).
The popular musical was an MGM vehicle for Judy Garland and the massive hit “On the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe.” Given fourth billing while playing the lead dance hall girl, Lansbury cemented her ability to perform in both dramas and musicals on screen.
The Court Jester (1956)
Angela Lansbury played the cool, regal Queen Anne in a dynamite adaptation of The Three Musketeers (1948), then turned to filming a much goofier version of king and castle. The Court Jester (1956) showcases Danny Kaye’s frenetic singing and dancing, but it takes a strong presence to hold their own against his comedy (Mary Poppins fans will recognize Glynis Johns as well). As Gwendolyn, Princess of England, Lansbury plays off of his sprightly and charming character. The plot is convoluted, but it’s a funny and enjoyable farce.
A Lawless Street (1955)
Proving that there was nothing Lansbury couldn’t do, she next took a part as a complicated woman in the Western film A Lawless Street (1955). Estranged from her lawman husband, she shows back up with her traveling song-and-dance troupe, just as his town needs him most. She brings a central gravity while also displaying her stage chops as a chorus girl in the Old West.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Throughout the 1950s, she played small, villainous parts on screen, while trying to lay a foundation for a Broadway stage career. In 1962, she was cast in The Manchurian Candidate as the mother of returning war hero Lawrence Harvey (whom she is only 3 years older than in real life). The political thriller garnered her another Best Supporting Actress nomination.
The role as a cold, evil woman sabotaging her own son as well as American freedom startled and chilled audiences, and gave her enough household name recognition to land the role of Mame on Broadway after Rosalind Russell turned it down. The Manchurian Candidate aside, Lansbury was frustrated with the roles she was being offered in Hollywood. So, during the 1960s and 70s she would focus primarily on stage performances and starred in Gypsy and Sweeney Todd to rave reviews.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
She was introduced to a new generation with Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Set in World War II, Lansbury plays a no-nonsense, if unsuccessful, witch. She and the three evacuated children she has taken in must defend Britain’s coast from invading German forces. It’s a delightfully whimsical take on a dark subject.
It was humble mystery writer Jessica Fletcher that would bring her to the small screen. Murder, She Wrote debuted in 1984. Lansbury played a slightly nosy busybody author living in a small town in Maine who keeps solving crimes in her neck of the woods. But before that, she played Agatha Christie’s nosy and eagle-eyed Miss Marple in A Mirror Crack’d (1980). She has the cast wrapped around her mystery-solving finger—no easy feat, considering it included Tony Curtis and Elizabeth Taylor.
Lansbury parlayed her experience as an accomplished voice actor as well. Her simple, perfectly imperfect interpretation of the theme for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast still brings a tear to the listener’s eye. No one else could have played an anthropomorphized teapot better.
After the death of her beloved husband, Lansbury was at loose ends and had no projects in the works. She then received a script and a call from Emma Thompson who was writing the script for Nanny McPhee. Lansbury agreed to play the mean Auntie Adelaide and had an amazing time on set. The two got on famously and Lansbury found her way back in front of the camera and on to the West End stage.
In 2013, she was given an Honorary Oscar Award, having never won any of her individual nominations, and in 2014, Lansbury was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.
Her most recent appearance was in Mary Poppins Returns. She plays a joyful balloon woman in the park, leading everyone in the closing song of the film. It was a fitting final performance for such a magical screen presence.
Originally written for DVD Netflix