Angela Lansbury Biography Quotes 16 Report mistakes

Early Life and Family
Angela Brigid Lansbury was born on October 16, 1925, in the St John's Wood area of London. Her mother, Moyna Macgill, was a well-known Irish stage and screen actress, and her father, Edgar Lansbury, was a politician and timber merchant, the son of George Lansbury, the pacifist leader of Britain's Labour Party in the 1930s. Angela grew up in a household where public life and performing were part of the air she breathed. Her father died when she was a child, and the loss, coupled with the political turmoil of the era, left a deep impression. During the Blitz of World War II, Moyna Macgill moved the family first to North America and then to New York, ensuring safety and continuity of education. Angela studied acting at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art, developing the poise and diction that would become her signatures. She had three siblings who remained central throughout her life: her half-sister Isolde Denham, and her twin younger brothers, Bruce and Edgar Lansbury, both of whom would later build careers in the entertainment industry.

Breakthrough in Hollywood
By her late teens, Lansbury had arrived in Los Angeles and secured studio work just as the Golden Age of Hollywood was cresting. She made an astonishing debut in Gaslight (1944), delivering a sly, assured performance that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The following year she was nominated again for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), confirming a rare maturity as a young character actress. Contracted by MGM, she showed versatility in roles that ranged from historical dramas to musicals, including National Velvet (1944), The Harvey Girls (1946), The Three Musketeers (1948), and Samson and Delilah (1949). Even when cast as characters far older than her real age, she carved a niche through intelligence and subtlety rather than glamour alone. In The Manchurian Candidate (1962), opposite Laurence Harvey and Frank Sinatra, she gave one of cinema's indelible performances as the chilling, Machiavellian mother, earning a third Oscar nomination and cementing her reputation as a screen actor of penetrating power.

Stage Renaissance
While film introduced her to the world, the stage made Lansbury a legend. She found a soulmate in the Broadway musical, collaborating with composers and writers who shaped the American theatre. Jerry Herman's Mame (1966) transformed her career, revealing a blazing comedic presence and a big-hearted warmth that audiences adored. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and followed it with another for Dear World (1969). She powered Arthur Laurents and Jule Styne's Gypsy in a landmark 1970s revival, again claiming Broadway's top prize. Then came Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince's Sweeney Todd (1979), in which her Mrs. Lovett, performed alongside Len Cariou's Sweeney, fused vaudevillian sparkle with moral ambivalence in a performance that critics often cited as definitive. Decades later, Lansbury returned triumphantly to the stage in works such as Deuce (2007), Blithe Spirit (2009), and A Little Night Music (2009), earning yet another Tony Award for Blithe Spirit and demonstrating a remarkable staying power. The West End embraced her, too, with a celebrated run of Blithe Spirit that brought her an Olivier Award.

Television Icon
Lansbury's most visible and enduring connection with audiences began in 1984 with Murder, She Wrote, co-created by Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson, and William Link. As mystery novelist and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher, she projected wit, rectitude, and empathy, qualities that became synonymous with the character and with the series itself. Her husband, Peter Shaw, who had been an agent and studio executive, and later their son Anthony, were central to the show's production through Corymore Productions, underscoring the family's collaborative spirit. Lansbury not only starred but eventually took on executive producing responsibilities, overseeing a sprawling repertory of guest stars and recurring colleagues such as William Windom and Tom Bosley. The series ran twelve seasons and generated a string of television movies, sustaining global popularity. She earned a long run of Emmy nominations for the role and multiple Golden Globes, an unusual combination of critical regard and mass appeal.

Later Screen and Voice Work
Lansbury's versatility led her to family entertainment without diluting her dramatic authority. Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) introduced her to a new generation as the resourceful Eglantine Price. She later voiced Mrs. Potts in Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991), singing the title song with a simplicity that has since become a touchstone of animated film music. She brought comic snap to Death on the Nile (1978) and The Mirror Crack'd (1980), and worked steadily across film and television into her nineties. In the 21st century she reached yet another audience with appearances in Nanny McPhee (2005), a warmly received turn in Mary Poppins Returns (2018), and voice work in the animated feature The Grinch (2018). In each project she balanced professionalism with a generosity toward fellow artists, a quality many collaborators remarked upon.

Personal Life
Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell in 1945; the brief union ended amicably, and they remained on good terms. In 1949 she married Peter Shaw, beginning a partnership of more than five decades that encompassed family life and creative ventures. They had two children, Anthony and Deirdre, and Lansbury became a U.S. citizen in 1951 while retaining her British identity, embracing a transatlantic life that mirrored her career. When the cultural upheavals of the late 1960s touched the family, Angela and Peter moved their household to rural County Cork, Ireland, prioritizing their children's health and privacy. The decision proved restorative; the family later returned to the United States, and Anthony began directing, including episodes of Murder, She Wrote. Her brothers, Bruce and Edgar Lansbury, established themselves as producers, reinforcing the intergenerational ties that had always sustained her.

Honors and Influence
Across nine decades of performance, Lansbury accumulated honors that reflected the breadth of her work. She received multiple Tony Awards for her musical triumphs, a string of Golden Globes for film and television, and an Honorary Academy Award acknowledging a career that had encompassed three Oscar nominations and an enduring contribution to cinema. She was recognized by the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000, and in the United Kingdom she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1994 and Dame Commander in 2014, a capstone that connected her achievements to the country of her birth. Yet numbers and ribbons never quite captured her singular appeal. On stage she married comic buoyancy to moral gravity; on screen she turned supporting roles into indelible presences; on television she fashioned Jessica Fletcher into a global emblem of decency and curiosity.

Final Years and Legacy
Peter Shaw's death in 2003 ended a long partnership, but Lansbury continued to work and to mentor younger performers. She remained a sought-after presence at concerts, tributes, and anniversary events, often honoring the composers and writers central to her career, notably Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman. She died on October 11, 2022, just days before her 97th birthday, leaving behind a legacy built as much on character as on characters. The people closest to her, her children, Anthony and Deirdre; her extended family of artists and producers, including her brothers Bruce and Edgar; and the colleagues who shaped her milestones from Gaslight to Sweeney Todd to Murder, She Wrote, testified to an uncommon blend of discipline, generosity, and joy. More than any single role, it is that synthesis that endures: the artist who brought rigor to every line and warmth to every stage, and who taught audiences, across continents and generations, how lasting a performance can be.

Our collection contains 16 quotes who is written by Angela, under the main topics: Motivational - Wisdom - Art - Mortality - Sarcastic.

Other people realated to Angela: Jerome Lawrence (Playwright), Stephen Sondheim (Composer), Ingrid Bergman (Actress), John Frankenheimer (Director), Bea Arthur (Actress), George Axelrod (Writer), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Actress), Jerry Orbach (Actor), Lesley-Anne Down (Actress), George Kennedy (Actor)