Angela Lansbury tributes pour in from George Takei, Viola Davis and more following her death: ‘Our beloved Mrs. Potts will sing lullabies to us now from the stars’

Angela Lansbury made a lot of friends during her almost 80 years in the entertainment industry, in which she dazzled on stage and screen, in everything from her debut movie role in 1944’s Gaslight to her 1966 head-turning performance in Mame to her beloved characters of Jessica Fletcher on TV’s Murder, She Wrote in the ’80s and ’90s to 1991’s animated movie Beauty and the Beast, in which she voiced Mrs. Potts.

Within hours after her family announced Tuesday that she had died at 96, Hollywood began to pay tribute.

George Takei noted that Lansbury had won five Tony Awards — one of which was a Lifetime Achievement Award received just this year — and played the mystery writer/amateur detective on the popular Murder, She Wrote for 12 seasons. He added the lyrical message, “A tale as old as time, our beloved Mrs. Potts will sing lullabies to us now from the stars.” He added, “Rest, great soul.”

Oscar winner Viola Davis remarked that Lansbury had influenced generations of actors. Meanwhile, Josh Gad, one of the stars of the 2017 live-action version of Beauty and the Beast, went further and noted that she had touched several generations of people, period.

Here are some of the others: