Angela Lansbury: The Superstar who Wasn't (And Then Again Was)
It was a very long career for Angela Lansbury, from the forties (and Gaslight and The Harvey Girls) through the 60s(the monster mother of The Manchurian Candidate, Elvis' mother in Blue Hawaii) on through the 70s(on stage mainly, but check out her flamboyant turn as some kind of fake psychic drunk in "Death of the Nile" -- she steals the movie from people like Bette Davis and Maggie Smith.)
On Broadway: Mame (Lucille Ball got the movie) and Sweeney Todd (Helena Belham-Carter got the movie, directed by her boyfriend Tim Burton).
Interestingly, when Frank Sinatra agreed to play the hero in The Manchurian Candidate, he suggested that Lucille Ball play the monster mother. Not that time!
The obits indicate that Angela Lansbury never won an Oscar, nor an Emmy (she was nominated for Murder She Wrote 12 times!) She was kinda sorta a supporting player in movies where Ingrid Bergman, Judy Garland, Eva Marie Saint and Janet Leigh got the female leads.
But she was always there, always working, dependably so.
And then came the 80's and Murder She Wrote. A different kind of superstardom arrived: television series superstardom. With a show on Sunday nights, when people were settling in from the weekend and facing the week ahead (she got Ed Sullivan's old slot from the 50s and 60s.)
Two things were key to Lansbury's ride on Murder She Wrote:
(1) She played an incredibly NICE person -- the villain of The Manchurian Candidate and some forties movies disappeared and America(and the world) were given a best friend(for women of a certain age) and a role model of decency and sharpness(for everybody else.)
And yet Jessica Fletcher's nice lady operated a lot of time in what one critic dubbed "the bloodbath that was Cabot Cove." People kept getting murdered all the time in a relatively small, low population town. (Jessica had to go on trips to find new murderers some time.)
(2) In the tradition of Burke's Law (a whodunit show) and The Love Boat(not), Lansbury attracted guest stars largely from TV series and movies past, with a sampling of young stars present. It was a nice place for older fans to once again see older stars.
12 years was a long time to lead a TV series. As James Arness did with Gunsmoke, Lansbury near the end started dropping out of several episodes a year and allowing "guest detectives"(some of them her friends) to investigate for her (she would drop in for intros and outros.) That's stardom. Paid more to work less.
Murder She Wrote ended its official run in 1996, but Lansbury returned for a few special TV movies with Jessica, and worked steadily for over two more decades. Before MSW ended its first run, Lansbury also made a big splash doing vocals (and the title song) in the animated Beauty and the Beast.
Plenty enough on her resume to deem Ms. Lansbury one of the longest lived and most successful performers of stage, screen and(especially?) television. She wasn't a superstar in the beginning, but she is at the end.
RIP at 96...one of those nice long lives...but not long enough...