Angela Lansbury, who achieved widespread fame as the star of the long-running CBS series “Murder, She Wrote” and was the recipient of six Tony Awards (including an honorary one bestowed this year) was never to be confused with any other performer. A royal in exile, astringently self-possessed, her syllables arrayed like fine china, she was at once instantly recognizable and readily transformable.
Lansbury, who died on Tuesday at age 96, didn’t disappear into her roles, but she could play anything. She was as much a character actor as she was a star.
In 2014, when writing a profile of Lansbury, I asked Stephen Sondheim for his thoughts on one of his most distinguished interpreters. He was away in London and missed my deadline for the piece, but I preserved his pithy remarks: “It’s hard to write about her without sounding like her agent. Suffice it to say that every playwright should have her in their play and every theater songwriter should have her in their musical.”
