Angela Lansbury

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Angela Lansbury (16 October 1925 to 11 October 2022) was a British actress and singer, born in London, the daughter of the Irish actress Moyna Macgill and the politician Edgar Lansbury. To escape the Blitz she went to the United States in 1940, where she studied drama. In 1942 she signed with MGM. Her first film roles were in Gaslight in 1944, National Velvet in 1944 and The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1945. Later she often played motherly roles on television and in film.

Music and breakthrough

In 1957 she made her Broadway debut. She played major roles in the musicals Dear World, Gypsy and Sweeney Todd. In Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd she played Mrs Lovett, and the 1984 recording, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, is among her best-known records. She also appeared in the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks from 1971. In 1970 she moved to Ireland. From 1984 she became world famous as the detective Jessica Fletcher in the television series Murder, She Wrote.

Influence

Lansbury won six Tony Awards, six Golden Globes and received an Oscar for her lifetime achievement. In 2014 she was made a dame. Her work shows how the musical theatre of the twentieth century, with its acted singing, took shape in film and television.

Listening

• 
  Beauty and the Beast · Angela Lansbury, 1991

Discography

Studio albums

• 1984Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (soundtrack)
• ?The Beggar's Opera