Angela Lansbury, a multitalented performer who impressed audiences for decades in roles as varied as a murderous baker, a singing teapot, a Soviet spy, and a small-town sleuth, passed away on Tuesday, her family said. She was 96.
“The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday,” A statement from her family read:
The actor had already had a fruitful career when she landed the role that would define her for many Americans: mystery writer and amateur crime fighter Jessica Fletcher on the CBS Sunday night hit “Murder, She Wrote.”
For 12 years, from 1984 to 1996, Lansbury portrayed a widower mystery writer whose acute observations usually outwitted crooks and even the local police, only for the true culprit to be unmasked within the hour.
The show was one of CBS’s biggest hits of the ’80s and a fixture on Sunday night television at 8 o’clock.
In the 1991 animated musical “Beauty and the Beast,” Lansbury brought her singing skills from Broadway to the big screen.
Lansbury gave Mrs. Potts her voice, which is one of the most loved parts of the popular movie.
