Angela Lansbury Almost Lost Iconic 'Murder, She Wrote' Role To Another Famous Actress

Oct 13, 2022

Hollywood has seen the rise of true icons over the years. The most distinguished of them had careers that lasted decades and usually either showcased a wide array of roles and talents or cemented each star's overwhelming talent in a genre.

One of these actresses was Angela Lansbury, a British-American actress who was known for her many theater, film and television roles. Her career in show business spanned nearly 80 years before she passed away on Oct. 11, 2022. Angela was considered one of the last remaining stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. 

The actress was best known for her roles in "The Manchurian Candidate," "Mame," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" and "Murder, She Wrote." Angela also lent her voice to popular animation films such as "Beauty and the Beast" and "Anastasia."

She was the recipient of many awards over her career, including an Honorary Academy Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the BAFTA, as well as winning five Tony Awards, six Golden Globes, and an Olivier Award, among many other nominations.

At her peak, Angela also had a rich personal life. In 1949, she married the love of her life, Peter Shaw, and the couple had two children. Their son Anthony and daughter Deirdre grew up in America but moved to Ireland with their parents later in life after personal struggles. Before the icon's passing, the Lansbury family had led a very happy life. Now after Lansbury's passing, fans are looking back at her iconic career, especially her iconic role in "Murder, She Wrote." 

Hollywood has seen the rise of true icons over the years. The most distinguished of them had careers that lasted decades and usually either showcased a wide array of roles and talents or cemented each star's overwhelming talent in a genre.

One of these actresses was Angela Lansbury, a British-American actress who was known for her many theater, film and television roles. Her career in show business spanned nearly 80 years before she passed away on Oct. 11, 2022. Angela was considered one of the last remaining stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. 

The actress was best known for her roles in "The Manchurian Candidate," "Mame," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" and "Murder, She Wrote." Angela also lent her voice to popular animation films such as "Beauty and the Beast" and "Anastasia."

She was the recipient of many awards over her career, including an Honorary Academy Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the BAFTA, as well as winning five Tony Awards, six Golden Globes, and an Olivier Award, among many other nominations.

At her peak, Angela also had a rich personal life. In 1949, she married the love of her life, Peter Shaw, and the couple had two children. Their son Anthony and daughter Deirdre grew up in America but moved to Ireland with their parents later in life after personal struggles. Before the icon's passing, the Lansbury family had led a very happy life. Perhaps now more than ever, fans are noticing a striking resemblance between the late Angela and her daughter Deirdre.

The iconic actress was born to an upper-middle-class family in central London on Oct. 16, 1925. Her mother was actress Moyna Macgill, and her father was a timber merchant and politician, Edgar Lansbury. Angela's father passed away from stomach cancer when she was only nine, and the actress has said that playing characters helped her cope with her grief.

Her mother struggled financially, and when she became engaged to another man, Angela and her mother moved in with him in Hampstead. Angela continued to educate herself with the help of books, movies and the theater. The young girl also learned how to play the piano and studied music at the Ritman School of Dancing. In 1940, she began studying acting at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art.

With the onset of the London Blitz, Angela's mother decided to move her family to the United States in 1940. Once there, Angela earned a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing, which granted her access to study at the Feagin School of Dramatic Radio and Arts. After graduating from the school in March of 1942, her family once again moved, this time to Greenwich Village. 

A natural-born actor all of her life, Angela has said:

"I did want people to notice me as a child. At the age of 11 or 12, I remember sitting on buses and trying to look interesting. Or I would get people's attention by saying something kind of outlandish that simply sounded as if I knew something they didn't know."

Angela began acting at the age of 17 when she quit working the cosmetic counter and signed a contract with MGM Studios. She then took her first major role in the 1944 movie "Gaslight," starring alongside Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. The role garnered Angela an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and skyrocketed her career.

Angela's first Oscar nod was followed very shortly thereafter by a second Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the film "The Picture of Dorian Gray." However, during this time, most of her roles were supporting characters, as Angela was under contract with MGM, which made her steadily grow unsatisfied with her unimaginative casting. In a 2017 Vanity Fair interview, she admitted, "MGM did not have a clue as to how to use me. And eventually, I couldn't wait to leave because I wasn't getting anywhere." She canceled her contract with MGM in 1952 and left acting to focus on family. 

In the mid-1950s, she returned to Hollywood as a freelance actress. However, once again, she was typecast in roles as older women who were often villainous or antagonistic characters. She went so far as to complain that "Hollywood made me old before my time." However, Angela managed to take some of these older roles– like Mrs. Iselin in 1962's "The Manchurian Candidate"-- and found a way to make them her own. The film gave Angela her third Oscar nomination.

Two decades later, Angela, then in her mid-fifties, would land a role that would both cement her in television history as well as make her feel appreciated, age-appropriate, and intelligent. 

When first seeing the script for "Murder, She Wrote," Angela commented that she felt drawn to the main character of Jessica Fletcher, given she appeared to be "a vital and intelligent being," instead of the doddering roles usually written for women her age. 

As excited as she was, Angela also said she was unaware of the commitment and "all-absorbing" the work would be. She admitted to having "no idea" what it would take to shoot a weekly hour-long mystery series but also conceded that she was "motivated by (her own) ego." 

She recalled, "Attempting to bring off my own show is a great challenge … I felt that it would have been a gap in my acting experience if I had never done a television series. I wanted to play to that huge audience just once." At the time of casting, Angela was luckily unspoken for.

She remembered, "there was nothing exciting for me on Broadway … I was sent two television scripts. One was a situation comedy … and the other was the two-hour pilot for Murder, She Wrote." Angela was intrigued, but writer Peter Fischer had apparently written the role for Jean Stapleton. However, Stapleton had just lost her husband and was unavailable. 

The rest, the chemistry and connection between Angela and the character, seems to be history. Remembering those first encounters, she recalled, "When I read it, I felt that Peter's script could have been written for me. Besides, there are so few decent roles for women on television, and I was immediately taken by Jessica." Angela would go on to play the iconic character from 1984 to 1996. 

What's your memory of "Murder, She Wrote"? Let us know — and be sure to pass this article on to friends, family, as well as any fans of Angela Lansbury!