7/1/2023 0 Comments Watch murder she wrote movies![]() ![]() ![]() Her stardom came in middle age when she became the hit of the New York theater, winning Tony Awards for “Mame” (1966), “Dear World” (1969), “Gypsy” (1975) and “Sweeney Todd” (1979). In 1948, when she was 23, her hair was streaked with gray so she could play a fortyish newspaper publisher with a yen for Spencer Tracy in “State of the Union.” Her mature demeanor prompted producers to cast her much older than her actual age. READ MORE: ‘Mame,’ ‘Hello, Dolly!’ composer Jerry Herman dies at 88 ![]() She earned Academy Award nominations as supporting actress for two of her first three films, “Gaslight” (1945) and “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1946), and was nominated again in 1962 for “The Manchurian Candidate” and her deadly portrayal of a Communist agent and the title character’s mother. Lansbury won five Tony Awards for her Broadway performances and a lifetime achievement award. She died five days shy of her 97th birthday. Lansbury died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles, according to a statement from her three children. It offers a fun couple of hours' viewing.NEW YORK (AP) - Angela Lansbury, the big-eyed, scene-stealing British actress who kicked up her heels in the Broadway musicals “Mame” and “Gypsy” and solved endless murders as crime novelist Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series “Murder, She Wrote,” has died. A well-scripted story in which the plot gives Lansbury the chance to really act. This initial TV movie, however, is a more 3-dimensional film. But in any case the other 3 spin-offs in this TV franchise are little more than self-indulgent, rambling & soporific TV 'dross'. Maybe this is because it was the first (made in 1997) of the 4 movies. Plus there are elements of 'The Lady Vanishes' when one of the lead characters disappears all the more poignant, of course, as Angela Lansbury herself starred as 'the lady' in the 1978 film version of the 'TLV'! Indubitably a fun film for die-hard fans of the TV series. With wonderful subtle references to other 'train crime' movies: the film noir 'Double Indemnity' 'The 39 Steps' (the rural train station at which Jessica Fletcher disembarks is amusingly named 'Hannay' after that film's lead character Richard Hannay) and of course another famous Hitchcock train movie: 'North by Northwest'. ![]() More worthy of Lansbury's dramatic scope than, sadly, the rest of the TV spin-offs, this is one film that is well worth setting the set-top box to record. A great story that pans out well, with a couple of surprising plot twists at the end. Without a doubt the best! of the 4 spin-off TV movies from the 'Murder, She Wrote' TV series. ![]()
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