Angela Lansbury's 75 Years Starring In Cinema And Broadway Over 94 Iconic Years Of Life

Feb 19, 2020 by apost team

Hollywood has seen the rise and career of many truly iconic actors and actresses over the years. The most distinguished of them had careers that lasted several decades and usually either showcased a wide array of roles and talents or cemented the star's overwhelming talent in one particular genre.

One of these truly iconic stars is Angela Lansbury. The British-American-Irish actress has played roles on TV, in films, theater and even opera during a career spanning almost eight decades.

Lansbury was not born to what could be called humble beginnings. But her mother, an Irish actress, and father, an English politician, surely never envisioned the international acclaim their daughter would later receive. After losing her father at the young age of 9, Lansbury, her mother and brothers moved to the U.S. a few years later in 1940, to escape The Blitz. They settled in New York, where she started to study acting at age 17. Her very first film role in 1944, at the age of only 18, featured her in a support role in the critically acclaimed film Gaslight.

Despite this being her first time on camera, her acting already netted her her very first Oscar nomination in the category supporting actress. This set the tone for her long and very successful career over the years.

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While her first movie appearance was widely celebrated, the following years saw her mostly in supporting roles. These include roles in National Velvet, where Lansbury formed a lasting friendship with Elizabeth Taylor, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) and Till the Clouds Roll By. During this time, Lansbury was under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer but growing steadly unsatisfied with the way she was cast.

MGM used Lansbury's wide acting talent and used her to fill the supporting roles they needed at the moment. "I was a utility actress, as far as MGM was concerned. They could put me into almost any role, and I would act it.", the star explained in a Vanity Fair interview in 2017. This often had the young actress playing the role of middle-aged women, despite the fact that she was a good 20 years younger than the characters she represented.

MGM's way of handling her left the actress feeling underappreciated and stifled in her career and skills. As she explains in the same interview: “MGM did not have a clue as to how to use me. And eventually, I couldn’t wait to leave because I wasn’t getting anywhere.” She finally cancelled her contract with MGM in 1952 and left film acting for a while, instead focusing on her growing family. She and her husband already had a son together when their daughter was born in 1953 and Lansbury adopted her husband's son by his previous wife in the same year.

She finally returned to Hollywood as a freelance actress, but was again typecast into roles of older women, often featuring in villainous or antagonistic roles. She went so far as to complain that "Hollywood made me old before my time." Her luck and career changed when she debuted on Broadway in 1957. Using the skills she had learned earlier in her career, she took to playing mature characters and giving them her own spin, which finally netted her the role as Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate in 1962. She was only three years older than the actor who played her son at the time.

Finally, 1966 saw Lansbury take the title role in the musical Mame, which earned her widespread fame and overwhelmingly positive reviews. Her status as an iconic actress, singer and dancer was finally well established. The following years saw her in a variety of movie and TV movie roles as well as recurring forays into theater and musical productions.

Then, finally, in 1983, she accepted the role that would lead her to global fame: the main role in the detective TV series Murder, She Wrote. This happened against her agents' recommendations, who favored a main role in a sitcom that was offered to Lansbury at the same time. Lansbury, however, went with the role she wanted to play the most.

Nowadays, Lansbury, aged 94, mostly keeps to cameo appearances in musical, theater and TV productions and her charitable work. Her time of leading roles is over, as she herself has stated. Her last major role was in 2007, and as the star confirmed in a then interview to the New York Times, she does not plan to have another great role afterwards. In fact, that she even accepted the role in 2007 was a big surprise even to her. However, with a career such as hers, retirement is surely well deserved.

Are you a fan of Angela Lansbury? Did you ever have the chance to see her during one of her Broadway performances? Pass this story along to other musical, theater and Lansbury fans!