ANGELA LANSBURY
Name: Angela Brigid Lansbury
Born: 16 October 1925 London, England
Angela Brigid Lansbury, CBE (born October 16, 1925) is an English three-time
Academy Award-nominated, Emmy-nominated, four-time Tony-winning and six-time
Golden Globe-winning actress and singer best known for her work in film, her
award-winning tenures on Broadway in such musicals as Mame, Gypsy, and Sweeney
Todd, and her performance in the starring role of Jessica Fletcher on the
American television series Murder, She Wrote. She holds the record for most Emmy
nominations without winning an award, with eighteen nominations to her name.
Her multi-faceted career has spanned seven decades, and she is well known for
her roles on both stage and screen.
Born in London, Lansbury was the daughter of Belfast-born actress Moyna MacGill
and Edgar Lansbury, a prominent businessman, and the granddaughter of the former
Labour Party leader George Lansbury. She is related to the English animator and
puppeteer Oliver Postgate, as George Lansbury is also his grandfather. Her
earliest theatrical influences were teen-aged coloratura Deanna Durbin, screen
star Irene Dunne, and her own mother, who encouraged her daughter's ambition by
taking her to plays at the Old Vic and removing her from South Hampstead High
School for Girls in order to enroll her in the Ritman School of Dancing and
later the Webber-Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art.
After her father's death of stomach cancer, 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 hand.
Just prior to the German bombing campaign of London, Lansbury's mother was
presented with the opportunity to take her children to America, and under cover
of dark of night they fled from their unhappy home and sailed for Montreal, from
there they headed to New York City. When her mother settled in Hollywood
following a fund-raising Canadian tour of a Noel Coward play, she (and later her
brothers) joined her there.
Lansbury worked at the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles. At one
of the frequent parties her mother hosted for British emigré performers in their
Laurel Canyon home, she met would-be actor Michael Dyne, who arranged for her to
meet Mel Ballerino, the casting director for the upcoming film adaptation of
Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Ballerino was casting Gaslight
with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, as well, and he offered her the role of
the impertinent and slightly malevolent maid Nancy. She was nominated for an
Academy Award for her 1944 film debut, and the following year garnered another
for her portrayal of Sibyl Vane in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945 film).
On Broadway, Lansbury received good reviews from her first musical outing, the
short-lived 1964 Stephen Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle, which co-starred
Lee Remick. Two years later, she was offered what proved to be the biggest
triumph of her theatrical career, the title role in Mame, Jerry Herman's musical
adaptation of the novel and subsequent film Auntie Mame, which had starred
Rosalind Russell. Opening at the Winter Garden Theater on May 24, 1966, Mame ran
for 1508 performances. Lansbury's portrayal, opposite Bea Arthur as Vera Charles,
earned her the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. She and Arthur
became life-long friends. In addition, Lansbury's version of one of the play's
songs, "We Need A Little Christmas", became the definitive version and has
received substantial radio air-play around Christmas time every year since its
release.
Lansbury won additional Tony Awards for Dear World (1969), the first Broadway
revival of Gypsy (1974), and her English music hall turn as affection-starved
meat pie entrepreneur Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim's ballad opera Sweeney
Todd (1979). In a television interview with Robert Osborne on Turner Classic
Movies aired in August 2006, Lansbury stated that, theatrically, she feels she
would "most like to be remembered for this role." She also stated that this
production was also a triumph and a comeback of sorts for Sondheim, whom she
admires.
She also is a two-time winner of the Sarah Siddons Award (1975 and 1981) for
dramatic achievement in Chicago theatre.
In 1971, Lansbury accepted the title role in the Jule Styne – Bob Merrill
musical Prettybelle. After a difficult rehearsal period, the show opened to
brutal reviews in Boston, where it closed within a week. In 1982 a recording of
the show was released by Varese Sarabande which included most of the original
cast and Lansbury's 11 o'clock number "When I'm Drunk, I'm Beautiful" along with
"You Never Looked Better", a song that was cut early in the run.
Lansbury returned to the Broadway stage for the first time in more than 25 years
in Deuce, a play by Terrence McNally, co-starring with Marian Seldes. The play
previewed at the Music Box Theatre on April 11, 2007, and opened on May 6, 2007
in a limited run of 18 weeks. Lansbury received a Tony nomination in the
category of Leading Actress in a Play for her role in this production, but did
not win the Tony that year.
Lansbury has enjoyed a long and varied career, mainly as a film actress in roles
generally older than her actual age, appearing in everything from Samson and
Delilah (1949) to Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Her notable credits
include The Manchurian Candidate (1962) in which she played Mrs. Iselin, the
cold-blooded mother of a war veteran brainwashed into becoming a Communist
assassin. She won much critical praise for her performance, and received her
third Oscar nomination. (Lucille Ball had been considered for the role; a decade
later, Ball coincidentally landed the title role in the film version of Mame,
the role Lansbury had created on Broadway.) On CNN's Larry King Live, Lansbury
said that her character in The Manchurian Candidate was her favorite of her many
film roles.
Lansbury's popularity from and association with Mame on Broadway in the '60s had
her very much in demand everywhere in the media. Ever the humanitarian, she used
her fame as an opportunity to benefit others wherever possible. For example,
when appearing as a guest panelist on the popular Sunday night CBS-TV show, What's
My Line?, she made an impassioned plea for viewers to contribute to the 1966
Muscular Dystrophy Association fundraising drive, chaired by Jerry Lewis.
After many years focused on the theatre, Lansbury returned to film, playing
Salome Otterbourne in Death on the Nile (1978). She was somewhat less successful
as Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd (1980).
Lansbury then turned to character voice work in animated films like The Last
Unicorn (1982) and as the Dowager Empress in the animated film Anastasia in 1997.
Her most famous voice work was the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in the Disney hit
Beauty and the Beast (1991), who performed the Oscar-winning title song written
by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. She reprised the role in "Beauty and the Beast:
The Enchanted Christmas" (1997), and again in the Disney/Square-Enix video game
Kingdom Hearts II in 2006. In the same year, she appeared in Nanny McPhee as
great aunt Adelaide.
While Lansbury has won every Tony for which she's been nominated, with the
exception of her nomination for Deuce in 2007, she was less successful with the
Oscars and Emmys. The Oscar has always eluded her, and Lansbury holds the record
for the most primetime Emmy nominations (twelve) as Best Actress without a
single win. Yet, she is the recipient of several other prominent awards,
including the People's Choice and Golden Globe.
Lansbury found her biggest success and a worldwide following as Jessica Fletcher
in the long-running television series, Murder, She Wrote (1984 - 1996), which
was one of the longest running detective drama series in US TV history and made
her one of the highest paid actresses in the world.
In 1983 Lansbury starred opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in a BBC adaptation of
the Broadway play A Talent For Murder. According to The Complete Films of
Laurence Olivier (Author Jerry Vermilye, Publisher Citadel), Lansbury later
stated that the production was "a rushed job", and her only reason for
participating, was the opportunity to work/team up with Sir Laurence Olivier.
In the early 1990s, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom appointed her a
Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She was named a Disney Legend in
1995. She received a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997,
Kennedy Center Honors in 2000, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Name: Angela Brigid Lansbury
Born: 16 October 1925 London, England
Angela Brigid Lansbury, CBE (born October 16, 1925) is an English three-time
Academy Award-nominated, Emmy-nominated, four-time Tony-winning and six-time
Golden Globe-winning actress and singer best known for her work in film, her
award-winning tenures on Broadway in such musicals as Mame, Gypsy, and Sweeney
Todd, and her performance in the starring role of Jessica Fletcher on the
American television series Murder, She Wrote. She holds the record for most Emmy
nominations without winning an award, with eighteen nominations to her name.
Her multi-faceted career has spanned seven decades, and she is well known for
her roles on both stage and screen.
Born in London, Lansbury was the daughter of Belfast-born actress Moyna MacGill
and Edgar Lansbury, a prominent businessman, and the granddaughter of the former
Labour Party leader George Lansbury. She is related to the English animator and
puppeteer Oliver Postgate, as George Lansbury is also his grandfather. Her
earliest theatrical influences were teen-aged coloratura Deanna Durbin, screen
star Irene Dunne, and her own mother, who encouraged her daughter's ambition by
taking her to plays at the Old Vic and removing her from South Hampstead High
School for Girls in order to enroll her in the Ritman School of Dancing and
later the Webber-Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art.
After her father's death of stomach cancer, 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 hand.
Just prior to the German bombing campaign of London, Lansbury's mother was
presented with the opportunity to take her children to America, and under cover
of dark of night they fled from their unhappy home and sailed for Montreal, from
there they headed to New York City. When her mother settled in Hollywood
following a fund-raising Canadian tour of a Noel Coward play, she (and later her
brothers) joined her there.
Lansbury worked at the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles. At one
of the frequent parties her mother hosted for British emigré performers in their
Laurel Canyon home, she met would-be actor Michael Dyne, who arranged for her to
meet Mel Ballerino, the casting director for the upcoming film adaptation of
Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Ballerino was casting Gaslight
with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, as well, and he offered her the role of
the impertinent and slightly malevolent maid Nancy. She was nominated for an
Academy Award for her 1944 film debut, and the following year garnered another
for her portrayal of Sibyl Vane in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945 film).
On Broadway, Lansbury received good reviews from her first musical outing, the
short-lived 1964 Stephen Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle, which co-starred
Lee Remick. Two years later, she was offered what proved to be the biggest
triumph of her theatrical career, the title role in Mame, Jerry Herman's musical
adaptation of the novel and subsequent film Auntie Mame, which had starred
Rosalind Russell. Opening at the Winter Garden Theater on May 24, 1966, Mame ran
for 1508 performances. Lansbury's portrayal, opposite Bea Arthur as Vera Charles,
earned her the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. She and Arthur
became life-long friends. In addition, Lansbury's version of one of the play's
songs, "We Need A Little Christmas", became the definitive version and has
received substantial radio air-play around Christmas time every year since its
release.
Lansbury won additional Tony Awards for Dear World (1969), the first Broadway
revival of Gypsy (1974), and her English music hall turn as affection-starved
meat pie entrepreneur Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim's ballad opera Sweeney
Todd (1979). In a television interview with Robert Osborne on Turner Classic
Movies aired in August 2006, Lansbury stated that, theatrically, she feels she
would "most like to be remembered for this role." She also stated that this
production was also a triumph and a comeback of sorts for Sondheim, whom she
admires.
She also is a two-time winner of the Sarah Siddons Award (1975 and 1981) for
dramatic achievement in Chicago theatre.
In 1971, Lansbury accepted the title role in the Jule Styne – Bob Merrill
musical Prettybelle. After a difficult rehearsal period, the show opened to
brutal reviews in Boston, where it closed within a week. In 1982 a recording of
the show was released by Varese Sarabande which included most of the original
cast and Lansbury's 11 o'clock number "When I'm Drunk, I'm Beautiful" along with
"You Never Looked Better", a song that was cut early in the run.
Lansbury returned to the Broadway stage for the first time in more than 25 years
in Deuce, a play by Terrence McNally, co-starring with Marian Seldes. The play
previewed at the Music Box Theatre on April 11, 2007, and opened on May 6, 2007
in a limited run of 18 weeks. Lansbury received a Tony nomination in the
category of Leading Actress in a Play for her role in this production, but did
not win the Tony that year.
Lansbury has enjoyed a long and varied career, mainly as a film actress in roles
generally older than her actual age, appearing in everything from Samson and
Delilah (1949) to Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Her notable credits
include The Manchurian Candidate (1962) in which she played Mrs. Iselin, the
cold-blooded mother of a war veteran brainwashed into becoming a Communist
assassin. She won much critical praise for her performance, and received her
third Oscar nomination. (Lucille Ball had been considered for the role; a decade
later, Ball coincidentally landed the title role in the film version of Mame,
the role Lansbury had created on Broadway.) On CNN's Larry King Live, Lansbury
said that her character in The Manchurian Candidate was her favorite of her many
film roles.
Lansbury's popularity from and association with Mame on Broadway in the '60s had
her very much in demand everywhere in the media. Ever the humanitarian, she used
her fame as an opportunity to benefit others wherever possible. For example,
when appearing as a guest panelist on the popular Sunday night CBS-TV show, What's
My Line?, she made an impassioned plea for viewers to contribute to the 1966
Muscular Dystrophy Association fundraising drive, chaired by Jerry Lewis.
After many years focused on the theatre, Lansbury returned to film, playing
Salome Otterbourne in Death on the Nile (1978). She was somewhat less successful
as Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack'd (1980).
Lansbury then turned to character voice work in animated films like The Last
Unicorn (1982) and as the Dowager Empress in the animated film Anastasia in 1997.
Her most famous voice work was the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in the Disney hit
Beauty and the Beast (1991), who performed the Oscar-winning title song written
by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. She reprised the role in "Beauty and the Beast:
The Enchanted Christmas" (1997), and again in the Disney/Square-Enix video game
Kingdom Hearts II in 2006. In the same year, she appeared in Nanny McPhee as
great aunt Adelaide.
While Lansbury has won every Tony for which she's been nominated, with the
exception of her nomination for Deuce in 2007, she was less successful with the
Oscars and Emmys. The Oscar has always eluded her, and Lansbury holds the record
for the most primetime Emmy nominations (twelve) as Best Actress without a
single win. Yet, she is the recipient of several other prominent awards,
including the People's Choice and Golden Globe.
Lansbury found her biggest success and a worldwide following as Jessica Fletcher
in the long-running television series, Murder, She Wrote (1984 - 1996), which
was one of the longest running detective drama series in US TV history and made
her one of the highest paid actresses in the world.
In 1983 Lansbury starred opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in a BBC adaptation of
the Broadway play A Talent For Murder. According to The Complete Films of
Laurence Olivier (Author Jerry Vermilye, Publisher Citadel), Lansbury later
stated that the production was "a rushed job", and her only reason for
participating, was the opportunity to work/team up with Sir Laurence Olivier.
In the early 1990s, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom appointed her a
Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She was named a Disney Legend in
1995. She received a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997,
Kennedy Center Honors in 2000, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.