Angela Lansbury
Angela Brigid Lansbury, CBE is an English actress and singer whose career has spanned seven decades. Her first film appearance was in Gaslight as a conniving maid, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Among her other films are The Manchurian Candidate, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Beauty and the Beast. She expanded her repertoire to Broadway and television in the 1950s and was particularly successful in Broadway productions of , Mame and Sweeney Todd. Lansbury is perhaps best known for her role as writer Jessica Fletcher on the U.S. television series Murder, She Wrote, in which she starred from 1984 to 1996. Her recent roles include Lady Adelaide Stitch in the 2005 film Nanny McPhee, Leona Mullen in the 2007 Broadway play Deuce, Madame Arcati in the 2009 Broadway revival of the play Blithe Spirit and Madame Armfeldt in the 2010 Broadway revival of the musical A Little Night Music.
Respected for her versatility, Lansbury has won five Tony Awards, six Golden Globes, and has been nominated for numerous other industry awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress on three occasions, and eighteen Emmy Awards.
Angela Brigid Lansbury was born in Poplar, London, to Belfast-born actress Moyna MacGill and Edgar Lansbury, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and former mayor of the London borough of Poplar. Her paternal grandfather was the Labour Party leader George Lansbury. She is the elder sister of producer Edgar Lansbury and a cousin of the late English animator and puppeteer Oliver Postgate. Her cousin, the academic Coral Lansbury, was the mother of former Australian federal Opposition Leader and noted republican Malcolm Turnbull. She was raised in both the Anglican and Episcopal churches.