Angela Lansbury, iconic star of stage and screen, died on Tuesday at the age of 96. Because the world is good sometimes, she was properly lauded during her life, gathering six Tony Awards, six Golden Globes, an Olivier, an Academy Honorary Award, and nominations for three Oscars, 18 Emmys, and a Grammy for her achievements. Over her very long career, she endeared herself to everyone from children (see: her comforting vocal performance as Mrs. Potts in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast) to grandmothers (and grandmothers at heart) through her 12-season run on Murder, She Wrote.
Below are eight standouts to celebrate the eight decades Angela Lansbury spent on our screens — but if you’re looking for even more from her, don’t forget a third of Lansbury’s genius was left on the stage, so do yourself a favor and fall into a YouTube spiral of the highest order. Her Mame curtain call is absolutely spectacular, a throwback to a time when standing ovations meant something; the applause from (allegedly) the raucous first performance of “A Little Priest” on Sweeney Todd’s opening night is thunderous; and existing footage from her Tony-winning turn in Gypsy is a masterclass in her genius blend of vaudeville-era showbiz and mid-century psychology.
And, of course, the dame had class. Any interview or appearance she ever made highlighted what we came to love about her: She was charming and candid, as open as can be while still keeping her internal essence to herself. When you had that kind of talent, you knew just how much to offer, and when. These eight picks show how she honed all these gifts into a singular screen persona that, while ranging from the dastardly to the darling, encompass the beloved actress’s artistry.
Gaslight (1944)
Before the word lost all meaning, Gaslight meant one thing: an Ingrid Bergman psychological thriller in which her husband convinces her she’s going insane so he can steal her family’s fortune. The 19-year-old Lansbury nabbed a Best Supporting Actress nomination in her first screen outing for her role as the downright bitchy maid Nancy, who’s all too happy to flirt with Bergman’s man and give her some serious glares.
Though Lansbury maintains she was never set up to be a beautiful Hollywood starlet, it’s a delight seeing her pretty, innocent face snarling while delivering the quips that contribute to Bergman’s descent. The film is genuinely frightful, and Lansbury’s performance, which borders on comic relief, only adds to its terrifying disorientation. Had it been nonstop conniving, the film would have hinged on one note — tough to sustain an audience — but her behavior adds to the madness: Between all the obvious scheming, it’s Nancy’s sardonic cracks that make us feel there is really no one to trust.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Ever the Brit, Lansbury offers an Oscar-nominated performance in this paranoid political thriller that answers the question, “What if we mixed Lady Macbeth’s murderous horniness with Queen Gertrude’s motherly love?” The result, reader, is one of the most disturbing portrayals of ruthless ambition ever set to celluloid. Filmed with calculated, noirish despair, Lansbury’s Mrs. Eleanor Iselin connects those Shakespearean greats to 20th-century American politics, coolly explaining to her son, “You are to shoot the presidential nominee through the head,” as she plots her senator husband’s ascent to power.
The film is of an ilk rarely seen today: the clear-eyed espionage drama as intimately tied to its current moment as it is to a nihilistic worldview dating back to the Greeks. Made frighteningly clear through Lansbury’s performance, there is always a reason to look behind your back. If her career is best remembered for her bubbling, inviting roles as Auntie Mame and Mrs. Potts, this is the one to nail down the breadth of her ability.
Something for Everyone (1970)
There are a few entry points into this little-known movie, all of which, in the spirit of this week’s National Coming Out Day, I’ll comfortably say mean you’re probably gay: It’s written by Hugh Wheeler (A Little Night Music), directed by Hal Prince (West Side Story), was shot in a lavish Bavarian castle, and stars Michael York (Liza’s bisexual bedmate in Cabaret) alongside Lansbury. The film is only available via Kino Lorber’s 2016 remastered home-video release unless you do some, ahem, digging on a certain Tube.
A handsome stranger (York) stumbles upon the Von Ornstein family, led by the elegant Countess (Lansbury), and makes it known that he will do anything to wriggle his way into the aristocracy — despite the fact the family’s wealth has been declining, with the Countess & Co. clinging on to their manners in that fabulous Tennessee Williams way (had he been a post-WWII European). York shows he has something for everyone, aiding and a-bedding the entire family while the increasingly snatched Lansbury wears large sunglasses and mutters things like, “Ugh, silly old bitch!” at garden parties. It might not live up to the delicious expectations set by the premise, but it’s a campy ride nonetheless, with plenty of laughs and silly murder-mystery turns as the drama ramps up.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
Somewhat of a forgotten Disney film due to the studio’s preference for its similarly very British, live action–animated hybrid Mary Poppins (by the same director), Bedknobs also pales in another wild Julie Andrews comparison: They both feature reluctant maternal figures rearing kids to fight against Nazis. Lansbury plays Eglantine Price, a private woman in a big, empty house whose so-far-so-good correspondence course in witchcraft is interrupted when she has to take in three children escaping the Blitz.
As she was wonderfully wont to do, she bases the role in her ability to play the sturdy everywoman who is not to be underestimated. Watching her scan her new broom, full of possibility and independence, is a study in surprised desire; her big, expressive eyes reveal its long-mined depths. Bedknobs often lets the camera rest on her full body as it plays, giving us the chance to glimpse the stage persona she brought to each role while showing off her early green-screen abilities as she flies, falls, leaps, and straddles her rowdy broomstick with the unassailable commitment of a British character actor.
The Mirror Crack’d (1980)
If you’re here for limp-wristed drama, the buck stops at this catty mystery adapted from the similarly titled Agatha Christie novel (whose mirror crack’d from Side to Side). Alongside Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Kim Novak, Geraldine Chaplin, and Pierce Brosnan — are you okay? Do you need smelling salts? — Lansbury stars as Miss Marple, a spinster and amateur sleuth whose village is descended upon by a Hollywood production company shooting an Elizabethan costume drama.
Ever the everywoman, Lansbury grounds this twisty romp brimming with feuding actresses, poisoned cocktails, and long, Jenna Maroney–style rambles. While its Dynasty-level backstabbing will buoy you up from the inevitable depression that will set in upon remembering we don’t have divas ready to throw down like this anymore, it’s best to view this with a couple mimosas nonetheless.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982)
One of the pinnacles of musical theater, 1979’s Sweeney Todd rejoined Lansbury with Hugh Wheeler and master composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, with whom she’d collaborated on Anyone Can Whistle and the first (and best) Gypsy revival. She’d already won her fourth Tony for the role of Mrs. Lovett by the time she took the show on the road, which this recording captured in its full glory during its final L.A. stop.
If you’ve made it this far into the list, there’s little to learn about Lansbury’s iconic portrayal of the batty baker whose combined horniness and financial instability (who can relate!) lead her into a web of lies that might score her a beefy barber and a new source of meat for her pies. Again, Lansbury imbues the shadowy, capital-S Serious work with her signature mix of comedy and humanity: Her Mrs. Lovett is as much your great-aunt after one too many as she is an alarming vision of the depths to which humans can succumb. Her vocal delivery is clear, the intentions are set, her choices seemingly made up on the spot; it’s one of the performances few have managed to shake off, and for good reason.
A Talent for Murder (1983)
Based on the Broadway play of the same name, this television film features Lansbury at her kookiest, as a wealthy mystery writer with a penchant for sadistic, alcohol-fueled games involving her tricked-out mansion. Shot on videotape, it scratches the same, very particular itch for zany, stagey, no-budget, low-stakes, made-for-TV nonsense she would go on to target in Murder, She Wrote the following year.
Co-starring, of all people, Laurence Olivier, it’s a perfect example of how the actress’s artistry can elevate anything she’s in. Her love for the craft is evident here, with Lansbury knowing how to wink at an audience while remaining committed to the work. The story, to put it elegantly, makes no fucking sense, but that hardly matters when you have Angela Lansbury knocking back brandies in a motorized wheelchair while wearing a ridiculous silver bob. It’s all on YouTube and, unless Rian Johnson buys up the rights for his next Knives Out film, it’s likely to stay there.
Positive Moves: A Personal Plan for Fitness & Well-Being at Any Age (1988)
Now here’s a treat: Lansbury going full Jane Fonda in this 1988 VHS tape about staying in great mental and physical shape as time goes on. Her warm voice is comforting as ever as she guides you through low-impact workouts she learned from her mother, explained calmly from her lush California home — or is it an English garden? Is Lansbury the bridge between the posh relaxation of the two cultures? Either way, it ends with her expounding on the virtues of sex in a candle-lit bathtub. She truly could do it all.
