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"Angela Lansbury" - Biography Page
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| Angela Lansbury |
Angela Lansbury's distinguished career includes successes in virtually every area of the entertainment spectrum. She has received an unprecedented four Tony Awards, three Academy Award nominations as well as ten Emmy Award nominations for her many outstanding television appearances. She starred for several seasons as the beloved 'Jessica Fletcher' on the hugely popular series "Murder, She Wrote" and recently reprised the role in a special television film.
Lansbury was born in London, the daughter of a British lumber merchant and a famous stage actress named Moyna Macgill, who was the toast of the London stage in the 1920s and 30s. She began her own training as an actress at the Webber-Douglas School for Dramatic Arts but was interrupted by the start of World War II; along with her twin brothers Bruce and Edgar, and the rest of her family, she moved to the United States. There, the young aspiring actress enrolled at the Feagin School of Dramatic Arts in New York. Eventually she joined the rest of the family in California. In 1944 director George Cukor cast the teenage actress in "Gaslight," and she became a contract player at MGM. This first movie role won her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.
David Tomlinson -as- "Professor Brown"
Lansbury received a second Oscar nomination for her portrayal of 'Sybil Vane' in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945). A variety of other films followed including "National Velvet," "The Harvey Girls," "State of the Union," "Samson and Delilah," "The Court Jester," "The Long Hot Summer," "The Manchurian Candidate" (for which she received her third Academy Award nomination), "The World of Henry Orient," "Dear Heart," "Mister Buddwing," "Something for Everyone," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," "Death on the Nile," "The Mirror Crack'd" and "The Company of Wolves." She was honored with a British Academy Award for her lifetime achievement in over 40 motion pictures.
In 1957, Lansbury won critical acclaim for her Broadway debut in "Hotel Paradiso." Three years later, at the urging of producer David Merrick, she returned to the Broadway stage to star in the drama "A Taste of Honey." She continued to demonstrate her versatility as a performer with her next stage role in the Arthur Laurents/Stephen Sondheim musical "Anyone Can Whistle." The actress became a Broadway star and won the first of her four Tony Awards in 1966 with her tour de force performance as Mame Dennis in the hit musical "Mame." She went on to win other Tonys as best actress in a musical for her work in "Dear World," the revival of "Gypsy" and "Sweeney Todd." Among her other prestigious stage credits are starring roles in Peter Hall's 1975 National Theater Company production of "Hamlet" at the Old Vic and in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Edward Albee's "All Over."
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| Disney's - "Beauty and the Beast" - 1991 |
