'Murder, She Wrote' actress Angela Lansbury passes away at 96
Angela Lansbury, the British-born actress whose career spanned eight decades and produced indelible portraits of a wide range of characters from villainesses to sleuths and light comic roles in movies, on stage and on television, died at age 96, her family said on Tuesday.
Lansbury, who played a crime-solving mystery writer in the long-running US television series 'Murder, She Wrote', "died peacefully in her sleep" at home in Los Angeles, according to a statement from her children.
The actress was just five days shy of her 97th birthday, the statement said.
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In movies, Lansbury turned in riveting supporting performances, including her film debut as a teenager playing the conniving Cockney maid in 'Gaslight' in 1944, as the doomed Sibyl in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' in 1945 and as Laurence Harvey's evil, manipulative mother in 'The Manchurian Candidate' in 1962. All three roles earned her Academy Award nominations.
Nearly seven decades after her first film, she was awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement at age 88 in November 2013.
Her other movie credits included 'National Velvet' (1944), 'The Dark At the Top of the Stairs' (1960), 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks' (1971) and 'The Mirror Crack'd' (1980).
Lansbury won five Tony awards for Broadway performances in 'Gypsy', 'Sweeney Todd', 'Dear World' and 'Blithe Spirit'.
She reached her broadest audience in 'Murder, She Wrote' as retired English teacher-turned mystery writer Jessica Fletcher, who week after week found herself at the scene of a homicide. The series, which ran from 1984 to 1996, brought her 11 of her 18 Emmy nominations.
Lansbury maintained a grueling acting schedule well into her 80s, appearing on Broadway in 2012 in 'The Best Man' with fellow octogenarian James Earl Jones.
