Death of Angela Lansbury, eternal Jessica Fletcher of Arabesque

Actress Angela Lansbury died on October 11 at the age of 96. If the general public knew her for her role as a detective in “Arabesque”, she had also won several Golden Globes and played for Frank Capra, Cecil B. DeMille or George Cukor.

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After spending her childhood in her native England, Angela Lansbury moved to the United States with her family at the start of the Second World War. Based in New York, she studied at the Feagin School of Drama and Radio.

Hollywood debut

In 1944, she made her film debut playing a good ingenue in the psychological thriller Hantise by George Cukor, alongside Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Her performance earned her her first Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress.

At the same time, we find her alongside Elizabeth Taylor in Le Grand national. She then turns in The Picture of Dorian Gray, where she plays Sybil Vaine, a fragile music-hall singer seduced and then abandoned by Gray. At only 20 years old, she was nominated for the Oscar for the best supporting role for the second time.

From then on, Angela Lansbury became in great demand and went on to major Hollywood productions such as L’Enjeu by Frank Capra with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, La Pluie qui chante, a musical telling the story of composer Jérome Kern with Judy Garland, Bel Ami, adaptation of Maupassant’s book or The Three Musketeers (1948), where she is Queen Anne of Austria alongside Gene Kelly. In 1949, she toured under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille in the epic Samson and Delilah.

A third Oscar nomination

Thereafter, mother of two children, she is rarer on the screens but still appears as a secondary role in small commercial successes such as The Fires of Summer, where she plays the mistress of Orson Welles, A Scandal at the court of Michael Curtiz, alongside Sophia Loren or What does Mom understand about love?, a comedy by Vincente Minnelli. Of great maturity, she seems older than her age and very often plays the mother of a family at only 30 years old. For example, she is only 3 years older than Laurence Harvey, who plays her son, in Un Crime dans la tête. It is also thanks to this film by John Frankenheimer that she obtained her third Oscar nomination in 1962.

A versatile actress, Angela Lansbury made her theater debut in 1957 and quickly became one of the stars of Broadway. It also appears well in serious plays (A taste of Money) than in musicals (Sweeney Todd). In 16 years, she won four Tony Awards, a record! In the 1970s and 1980s, we see her especially on the small screen where she participates in adaptations of the works of Agatha Christie such as Death on the Nile.

In 1980, she found at the cinema Elizabeth Taylor, 36 years after their first meeting, for The Mirror broke, still adapted from Agatha Christie. She also collaborates with the Disney studios, appearing as an actress (notably in The Apprentice Witch), guest or narrator in programs based on the Disney universe or even by lending her voice to many of the company’s cartoons such as Beauty and the Beast or Anastasia. This faithful collaboration earned him the Disney Legend award in 1995.

Arabesque, a great public success

But it was in 1984 that Angela Lansbury landed her best-known role, that of Jessica Flercher in the detective television series, Arabesque. This character who became a cult novelist/detective earned her 4 Golden Globes and marked the peak of her career. After 264 episodes, the series ends in 1996 but continues to be rebroadcast in many countries. Since then, Angela Lansbury has continued her career with discretion.

In the 2000s, we could see her in Nanny McPhee, with Emma Thompson and Colin Firth, Mr. Popper and his penguins, in the hit police series New York Special Unit or in the television films derived from the series. Arabesque.

In 2018, she appeared in cameo in The Return of Mary Poppins, in the role of an old lady with balloons endowed with surprising powers.

His family announces his disappearance at the age of 96, 5 days before his birthday.

“Arabesque”, the cult series by Angela Lansbury:

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Death of Angela Lansbury, eternal Jessica Fletcher of Arabesque