Adieu, Angela Lansbury

Hers was a life well spent, indeed. This report comes from NBC News:

Angela Lansbury, a versatile actor who wowed generations of fans as a murderous baker, a singing teapot, a Soviet spy and a small-town sleuth among a host of memorable roles, died Tuesday, her family announced.

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," her family said in a statement.

The London-born actor took her life’s final bow as one of the most decorated players in stage history.

Rap Sheet readers can be excused for thinking first of Angela Lansbury in her multiple-Emmy-nominated role as Jessica Fletcher, the amateur sleuth protagonist of CBS-TV’s Murder, She Wrote (1984-1996). However, if we look solely at her television appearances as they are listed in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), she also guest-starred on the anthology series Climax!, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Peter Falk’s The Trials of O’Brien, Newhart, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Lansbury was no stranger to small-screen movies, either, or—if we widen our scope—to big-screen flicks. Or the Broadway stage. Or the London stage, for that matter.

“The English-born daughter of an Irish actress, she was just 18 when she landed her first movie role,” The New York Times recalls in an obituary published earlier today. Lansbury didn’t stop appearing before the entertainment-hungry public for the next seven decades. “I really don’t know how to relax to the degree that I could just stop,” the Times quotes her as telling CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric back in 2009. “So when something comes along and is presented to me, and I think ‘Gee, I could have some fun doing that,’ or ‘I think I could bring something to that,’ I’ll do it.”

READ MORE: “Remembering Angela Lansbury With Her TV Guide Magazine Covers Through the Years,” by Kelli Boyle (TV Insider); “Angela Lansbury,” by Brad Friedman (Ah My Sweet Mystery!); “The Late Great Angela Lansbury,” by Terence Towles Canote (A Shroud of Thoughts); “Angela Lansbury in 1960s Spy Stories,” by Bill Koenig (The Spy Command).