Lady Angela Lansbury, who starred in the hit TV series The Murder She Wrote, has died at the age of 96.
The British actress died peacefully in her sleep at her Los Angeles home early Tuesday, just five days shy of her 97th birthday, her family said.
From left: Claude Adkins, Angela Lansbury and Tom Bosley on Murder, she wrote in the 1990s
The London-born star has won five Tony Awards for his Broadway performances and was nominated for three Oscars, and in 2013 received an honorary Oscar for his lifetime achievement in film.
On the big screen, she was credited for roles in “The Handlebar and the Broom” (1971), “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962), “Anastasia” (1997) and 1991’s “Beauty and the Beast” Famously, she is the voice of Mrs Potts.
Lansbury played author and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher in the American crime drama Murder that began in 1984. The show performed well in ratings prior to its 11th year.
Her mature demeanor prompted producers to cast her as an actor much older than her actual age. In 1948, when she was 23, Lansbury dyed her hair in gray streaks so she could use yen for Spencer Tracy to play a forty-something newspaper publication in the State of the Union address business.
Her stardom came in middle age when she became a New York theater hit, winning Tony Awards for Mame (1966), Dear World (1969), Gypsy (1975) and Sweeney Todd (1979).
In 2007, she returned to Broadway and received another Tony nomination as a brash former tennis star in Terrence McNally’s “Equally Even.”
She was nominated for an Academy Award for two of her first three films, Under the Gaslight (1945) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1946), and in 1962 for The Manchurian Candidate and Her portrayal of a Communist Party agent was nominated again.
She holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations, as well as winning the Best Actress in a TV series and receiving the most Emmy nominations for a leading actress in a TV series.
In a 2008 interview, Lansbury said she still welcomed the right script, but didn’t want to play “an old, sick woman.”
“I want women my age to be represented in their own way as vital, productive members of society,” she said.
“I’m amazed how much I’ve managed to pack in the years I’ve been in the business. And I’m still here.”
In a statement, her family said: “In addition to her three children, Anthony, Deirdre and David, she has three grandchildren, Peter, Catherine and Ian, and five great-grandchildren and her brotherhood. Filmmaker Edgar Lansbury.
“She was executed by her husband of 53 years, Peter Shaw.
“A private family ceremony will take place at a to-be-determined date.”