In 1962’s “Manchurian Candidate”, she portrayed Eleanor Iselin, Laurence Harvey’s mother. It was probably the most atypical role of hers! Whenever you see or hear people discussing any movie villain, she is always mentioned. This showed the tremendous acting range she had! Eleanor Iselin was just dripping with pure evil! It’s impossible to think of Angela Lansbury as the lovable “Jessica Fletcher” when you watch this movie! As I said she had a tremendous acting range!
She was quite the actress and always delivered a great performance!
R.I.P. Angela
This.
The families of her victims can now hopefully get some measure of closure, if not justice, at her passing.
Not to mention all the murders she was an accessory to as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd! In fact, she was the one who came up with the idea!
I was actually feeling bad due to a sort of misplaced responsibility when I heard the news today - I was having horrible Monday-itis on Sunday, so I put this exact movie and sang along with all my favorite parts.
She will be missed.
Angela was doing theater regularly until 2012. Starring role in Gore Vadel’s The Best Man Mar 06-Jul 22 2012.
Her long list of plays is astonishing.
I just learned Bruce Lansbury is Angela’s younger brother. He was the producer on Wild Wild West, Mission Impossible, Wonder Woman, Knight Rider, and Murder She Wrote.
That may explain why Angela did the series for so many years. She was working with family.
Bruce died in 2017.
She was 19 or 20 when she was in Gaslight and National Velvet. She always played ‘older’…My favorite is her snotty showgirl in The Harvey Girls in those lurid costumes. Sneering at America’s sweetheart, Judy Garland! … What a long, remarkable career! RIP!
In Murder She Wrote there were usually dramatic pauses, focusing on Angela’s face, as she realizes exactly how the murder happened from some inconspicuous detail.
Whenever somebody has a big realization in either fiction or in my real life, I always say they’re having a Jessica Fletcher moment.
I was never what you would call a big fan of Ms. Lansbury, don’t know if I ever watched an episode of “Murder She Wrote”, but then one day (I think it was on PBS), they had a full movie version of the play “Sweeney Todd” and I was blown away with her incredible performance as Ms. Lovett, especially as her singing held it’s own with a very good George Hearn. The last two lines they sang at the very end still echo with me:
Sweeney: “To seek revenge may lead to Hell…”
Miss Lovett: “But everyone does it and seldom as well.”
If you’ve never seen it, do so and prepare to be mezmerized by the performance and marvel at Ms. Lansbury’s performance of a very complex role.
They had snippets of a Terry Gross interview with her on NPR yesterday, and she mentioned how she often played older than her actual age. Then, they talked a bit about The Manchurian Candidate and didn’t mention she played Lawrence Harvey’s mother when she was only four years older than he.
On edit: How could I forget The Harvey Girls? One of my favorite movies as a young teen. She was wonderful in everything she did. And a big ditto on Sweeney Todd. Awesome performance.
I think the version I saw had Len Cariou as Sweeney. Lansbury was always a joy to watch in musicals, and Sweeney Todd and Pirates of Penzance are my favorite appearances of hers.
(Conversely, Bedknobs and Broomsticks seems to go on for-flipping-ever.)
She was crazy talented. She could act, dance and sing. She also had the most underrated legs in Hollywood. Here she is at 49 years old.
That was incredible!! Dancing on stairs… and splits, too! 
In heels! Not to mention when she stepped on the coat which did not look intentional.
Peripheral factoid: her grandfather was the politician George Lansbury, considered the conscience of the British Labour Party until his stubborn pacifism was overtaken by events in the 1930s.
In the 1960’s, she moved her family out of the country to get her kids away from Charlie Manson, who her daughter had befriended. She was prescient enough to realize how dangerous he was, and was loyal enough to prioritize her children.
Her son is a director. Anthony Shaw directed 68 episodes of Murder She Wrote.
Angela made the right choice in relocating her family and even taking a year off work to help her kids.