The American-British actress Angela Lansbury, petulant grandmother-detective of the Arabesque television series, died Tuesday at the age of 96, had illustrated herself in numerous musicals and in more than sixty films since the 1940s. at the Oscars from her first role at 19, she won six Golden Globes, including four for the American series Arabesque, where she portrayed a stainless author of detective novels, and also an amateur detective in her spare time. Her entire career was rewarded with an honorary Oscar in 2014. The actress “died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Los Angeles […], five days just before his 97th birthday”, explained his family in a press release sent to many American media. “I had an incredibly interesting and varied career that took me all around the world,” rejoiced in 2014 this British naturalized American, who has become the most famous detective novelist on the small screen. Aired from 1984 to 1996 on CBS then all over the world, Arabesque and its 264 episodes received a shower of awards, Emmy Awards and Golden Globes combined. At 91, the actress, still as lively, confided her desire to play one last time the role of Jessica Fletcher that she had agreed to play, originally, only for the money. She earned up to $300,000 per episode. Trained in Hollywood in the 1940s to 1950s, the young Venetian blonde, with large owl eyes and a round face, did not correspond to the standards of beauty of the time and remained confined supporting roles despite a very promising start. “She had a crazy talent and they didn’t know what to do with her”, lamented in 1998 Hurd Hatfield, her partner in The Picture of Dorian Gray, for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in 1946. . “Because I was not a great beauty, I played people much older than me,” said the actress, who played Elvis Presley’s mother in the musical Under the Blue Sky of Hawaii (1961 ).From Hollywood to BroadwayBorn October 16, 1925 in London into a family of politicians (her grandfather George Lansbury led the Labor Party in the 1930s) and actors, she fled the war for the United States after the death of his father. It was his mother, an Irish actress, who allowed him through acquaintances to land his first role in Hantise (1944), a psychological thriller by George Cukor with Ingrid Bergman. This role of seductive and disturbing servant earned her an Oscar nomination in a supporting role and a seven-year contract at MGM studios. She was then 19 years old. In 1948, after a first marriage with actor Richard Cromwell, the young woman met Peter Shaw who became her impresario and her husband until his death in 2003. She momentarily slowed down her career after the birth of their two children in 1952 and 1953. It was then on Broadway that she enjoyed major success. With Mame (1966), a musical comedy about wealthy New Yorkers during the Depression played more than 1,500 times, she won her first Tony Award. In 1970, she moved with her family to the Irish countryside to remove her daughter and son son to the influence of drugs, and for his daughter to that of guru Charles Manson as well. The Arabesque series then arrives at the right time. In 2009, she received her 5th Tony Award for L’esprit s’amuse, a theatrical comedy revived in London in 2014 where she declared, at 89, that she still had “excessive energy”. Angela Lansbury leaves behind three children, three grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, as well as her brother, the statement said. “A private ceremony for the family will be held on a date to be determined,” added his relatives.
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