Angela Lansbury, 83, returns to Broadway
It was a pleasant surprise, while Googling the name of the beloved English actress Angela Lansbury to settle an argument about national identity, to discover that the 83-year-old is returning to Broadway in a revival of the Noel Coward comedy Blithe Spirit.
It is remarkable that she shot to fame as long ago as 1944 with an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress in her screen debut, Gaslight, which starred Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Lansbury later established herself as a Hollywood star with her typically eccentric roles in movies like The Manchurian Candidate and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
She was memorable as Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, but became a household name for her role as private eye Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series Murder She Wrote.
She is respected on both sides of the Atlantic for her versatility, and has won four Tony Awards and six Golden Globes, with nominations for 18 Emmys and three Academy Awards. Her latest Tony nomination followed a Broadway outing two years ago in the play Deuce.
Born in London in 1925, Lansbury is the daughter of an actress and a politician, and the granddaughter of the former British Labour Party leader, George Lansbury. She followed her mother into the theatre and joined her in Hollywood, which became her life. She married twice, to Richard Cromwell and Peter Shaw.
In the 1990s, Lansbury was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the Queen, was named a Disney Legend, received a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Blithe Spirit, in which she plays the psychic Madame Arcati, has an official opening on Sunday, March 15, at The Shubert Theatre. Lansbury is featured in a brief but fascinating interview by Katie Charles in New York Magazine.
Tags: Angela Lansbury, Blithe Spirit, Broadway, Noel Coward, theatre
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