Murder, She Wrote star Angela Lansbury has died aged 96 after a glittering career in TV, film and Broadway.
Angela's children announced the actress had died peacefully at her home in Los Angeles this afternoon - just five days before her 97th birthday.
"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 a.m. today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday," her family said in a statement.
"In addition to her three children, Anthony, Deirdre and David, she is survived by three grandchildren, Peter, Katherine and Ian, plus five great grandchildren and her brother, producer Edgar Lansbury.
"She was proceeded in death by her husband of 53 years, Peter Shaw. A private family ceremony will be held at a date to be determined."
Tributes poured in to the actress, with Will and Grace actor Eric McCormack, who starred with Angela in a play, describing her as an "incredible woman", adding there was "no one like her."
He wrote: "So privileged I got to spend time with this incredible woman. No one like her. Rest In Peace, Ms Angela."
“Saddened to learn of the passing of Dame Angela Lansbury,” Michelle Donelan, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport tweeted.
“An icon of the theatre, a legend of the screen and one of the greatest actors of our time. May she Rest In Peace.”
Modern Family actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson shared a fond memory of Angela.
"I’ll never forget sitting next to Angela Lansbury at an opening night,” he Tweeted.
"Even though I had to pee I refused to leave my seat during intermission. I spent the 15 minutes chatting with her instead.
"She was incredibly lovely and I’m so glad I had that brief time with her. RIP Angela."
Actor Josh Gad shared a photo of himself with Dame Angela.
He said on Twitter: "It is rare that one person can touch multiple generations, creating a breadth of work that defines decade after decade. #AngelaLansbury was that artist.
"From ‘Mame’ to ‘Bedknobs’ to ‘Murder She Wrote’ to ‘B&TB’ to ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ she touched 4 generations. RIP Legend."
Star Wars actor George Takei was among those paying tribute.
He said on Twitter: "Angela Lansbury, who graced the stage for decades winning five Tony awards and brought the sleuthing Jessica Fletcher into our living rooms for a dozen years, has passed.
"A tale old as time, our beloved Mrs. Potts will sing lullabies to us now from the stars. Rest, great soul."
Meanwhile, fans of the Beauty and the Beast actress described her as a "true icon", and the "last classy movie star".
One fan wrote on Twitter: "It breaks my heart to hear of Angela Lansbury's passing. An absolute icon, her performances in Sweeney Todd on stage, and the films Court Jester and Company of Wolves will forever be among my favorite roles.
Another wrote: "RiP Dame Angela Lansbury. So much talent, spice, & ingenuity over a priceless career."
While a third said: "Absolute legend and icon. Decades of classic performances."
The actress, was perhaps best known as amateur detective Jessica Fletcher in the classic US series Murder, She Wrote.
She played Jessica from 1984 until 1996.
Angela had huge success when she first started out her acting career.
She was nominated for an Oscar for her first role, as the maid in 1944 classic Gaslight, and went on to work with stars including Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
Other credits to her name include The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) and her compelling performance in All Fall Down (1962).
As her career flourished, Angela then took a turn toward evil and was rewarded with her final Oscar nomination for portraying Laurence Harvey’s manipulative mother in the Cold War classic The Manchurian Candidate.
Her highest profile cinematic role since The Manchurian Candidate was as the voice of the motherly teapot Mrs. Potts in the Disney animation Beauty and the Beast in 1991.
Angela sung Tale As Old As Time in the film, which won an Academy Award and a Grammy.
The actress said she considered her role as Mrs Potts to be a gift to her three grandchildren.
Meanwhile, her best-known work on Broadway was probably as ghoulish pie-maker Nellie Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
She won a Tony for best musical actress in 1979 for that role.
Her other three stage wins were for best actress in a musical for Mame in 1966, Dear World in 1969 and Gypsy in 1975.
Lansbury made her final film appearance in the 2018 film Buttons: A Christmas Tale, starring alongside Dick Van Dyke.
But there is more to her story than Hollywood. She grew up in London, the granddaughter of working-class hero George Lansbury, who led Labour from 1932 to 1935.
Angela previously said the peace campaigner was her greatest inspiration: "This was the man who tried to stop the Second World War.
"He went and spoke with the leaders – Mussolini, Hitler, Roosevelt. He didn’t give up. Many people feel it killed him."
Her grandmother, Bessie, was a suffragette and dad Edgar was a Communist mayor in Poplar, East London, who died of cancer when Angela was nine.
At 15, mum Moyna Macgill, a former West End actress, took Angela to New York to escape the Blitz and from there she went to Hollywood.
At 19, she wed 35-year-old actor Richard Cromwell but it ended less than a year later.
“It made me in, a way, a little bit tough,” Lansbury, who remained friends with Cromwell until his death in the 1960s, said of the experience.
She found the love of her life almost immediately after the divorce when she started dating Peter Shaw - a failed actor turned executive and agent whom she would marry in 1949.
“He was everything to me,” Lansbury said.
“We were partners at work as well as husband and wife and lovers. I don’t know how we had such a long marriage, but the simple fact was that we were devoted to one another.”
They had two children, Anthony and Deidre.
Personal tragedy struck amidst her Broadway days when her family’s Malibu home burned down during a period when both of her children were fighting drug addiction.
She and Shaw then moved to Cork to regroup and get their kids clean.
She kept a home there ever since.
Peter died of heart failure aged 84 in 2003, after 54 years’ marriage.
Angela previously said: “I think I’m interested in every part of life – not just acting... my grandchildren, my life, cooking, driving.”
