Angela Lansbury
Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury, DBE (born 16 October 1925) is a British-American actress and singer who has appeared in theatre, television, and films. Her career has spanned seven decades, much of it based in the United States, and her work has attracted international attention. Lansbury was born in central London to actress Moyna Macgill and politician Edgar Lansbury. In 1940, she moved to New York City in the United States, where she studied acting. Proceeding to Hollywood, Los Angeles in 1942, she signed to MGM and got her first film roles, in Gaslight (1944) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), earning two Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe Award. She appeared in eleven further MGM films, mostly in minor roles, and after her contract ended in 1952 she began supplementing her cinematic work with theatrical appearances. Although her appearance in the film adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate (1962) was widely acclaimed, she finally gained stardom for her theatrical starring role in the Broadway musical Mame (1966). Relocating from California to County Cork, Ireland in 1970, she continued with a variety of theatrical and cinematic appearances throughout that decade. Moving to television, in 1984 Lansbury achieved widespread fame as the fictional writer and sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the American murder mystery series Murder, She Wrote, which ran for twelve seasons until 1996, becoming one of the longest-running detective drama series in television history. She assumed ownership of the series and was executive producer for the final four seasons. She also moved into voice work, thereby contributing to animated films like Beauty and the Beast (1991). Since then, she has toured prolifically in a variety of international productions, and continued to make occasional film appearances. Lansbury has won an Honorary Oscar, 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 various Primetime Emmy Awards on eighteen occasions. Further, she has been cited as both a gay icon and an American icon, with a cult fan following.