Angela Lansbury died Tuesday at 96. It’s a shame that people my age remember her as the fictitious mystery novel writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher from the hit series “Murder She Wrote.” Yes, I watched it with my parents who never missed it just adored how the sexagenarian Lansbury outsmarted all those hip kids on the show and was always two steps ahead of the dunderheaded cops who contemptuously dismissed her as some mystery paperback writer. .The series began in a fictitious coastal town in Maine but soon had to move to New York City and then to environs around the world as the body count in Cabot Cove began to pile up and it became what would have been the murder capital of the world. The show began in the 1980s and ended in the 1990s and documented the swift onset of technology of that era as Fletcher began writing with a typewriter, moved to a computer and eventually had a laptop. She was also introduced to cell phone technology and virtual reality games along the way. .The series is still in syndication and it’s one of those shows that’s like televised macaroni and cheese. It’s just comforting because it depicts a world that even when it becomes upended eventually becomes normalized again. Jessica Fletcher marches into the midst of chaos and establishes order. . Angela Lansbury - Murder she wroteMost people know Angela Lansbury for her portrayal of crime fiction writer Jessica Fletcher. She died October 11th, 2022, at the age of 96. .Although she was nominated for 12 Emmy awards during the run of the series, she didn’t win one, although she did pick up four Golden Globe awards. .For a lot of actresses, “Murder She Wrote” might have capped a long career, but not for Lansbury who continued to work almost to the literal very last day. She was a frequent guest on Turner Classic Movies, where she talked about the many films she starred in and was still doing theatrical productions until her mid-90s. She was always an engrossing interview because she didn’t just talk about herself but about the people she worked with. That to me is the secret of a great interview and why Johnny Carson was so good at getting one; he could always extract that ingredient from his subject. .If you want to see Lansbury at her best, try watching her first film, “Gaslight” (MGM, 1944). She was nominated for an Academy Award but lost in a year that included films like “Double Indemnity” and “Going My Way.” Her real tour de force is the 1962 production of “The Manchurian Candidate,” directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Frank Sinatra and Janet Leigh. .The film chronicles how Chinese communists brainwash a U.S. army serviceman in order to kill a U.S. president. The plot is eerily prescient of what may have transpired with Lee Harvey Oswald. .This project remains shrouded in mystery and controversy because it disappeared for years after its initial release, prompting many to speculate that Sinatra — who owned the film — kept it out or circulation out of respect for his friend, the late President John F. Kennedy. .Lansbury played the brainwashed assassin’s mother, a two-faced patriot who is only interested in control and power, and she played it brilliantly. The movie is not difficult to find these days and is vastly superior to the remake with Meryl Streep playing the Lansbury role. .The actress was a perfect contemporary of Queen Elizabeth II, who named the British-born Lansbury a Dame of the British Empire in 2012. I have no idea what Lansbury’s politics were — her father was a bit of radical — because she rarely ever spoke about anything but art, acting, theatre and film. And that’s probably why she survived and thrived so long in the hurley-burley world of entertainment.
