Award-Winning Actor And Gay Icon Angela Lansbury Dies, Aged 96

Award-winning movie and stage actor and gay icon, Angela Lansbury, has passed away at the age of 96, five days before her 97th birthday. 

In a statement, her family wrote, “The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday.”  Best Known For Murder, She Wrote

She is best known for playing crime-solving mystery writer Jessica Fletcher in the crime mystery series Murder, She Wrote, for which she received 11 Emmy nominations.

Lansbury also starred in numerous films such as The Portrait of Dorian Gray and The Manchurian Candidate, winning Golden Globes for both. 

In 1971 she starred in Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks endearing herself to a generation of children. 

Lansbury’s breakout role came at the age of 19 when she acted in the psychological thriller, Gaslight, for which she received her first Oscar nomination.

She made her Broadway debut in 1957 and over the course of her stage career was awarded five Tony Awards for roles in such plays as Mame and Blithe Spirit.  

Lansbury: I Had No Idea I Was Marrying a Gay Man

In 1945, Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell. The marriage only lasted a year on the account of Cromwell being gay.

In a 2017 interview with Radio Times, Lansbury recalled, “I had no idea that I was marrying a gay man,”

“I found him such an attractive individual, a very glamorous person – he knew everybody, he was a friend of Joan Crawford’s, these people who I was fascinated by as a young actress. And he wanted to marry, he was fascinated with me, but only because of what he had seen on the screen, really.”

When asked if she regretted marrying Cromwell, Lansbury said that “it didn’t injure or damage me in any way, because he maintained a friendship with me and my future husband. But it was a shock to me when it ended, I wasn’t prepared for that. He simply couldn’t continue – he just left. It was just a terrible error I made as a very young woman. But I don’t regret it, and I’m sorry for the sadness that it caused him down the road… [when] he realised he couldn’t fulfil his function.”

In 1949, she married her second husband, Peter Shaw. The two were together till his death in 2003.

According to LGBTQ historian Eric Gonzaba, during the AIDS crisis, Lansbury was a “staple at AIDS benefits, helping raise millions of dollars to fund AIDS research & patient care.”

Condolences flowed in as news of Lansbury’s passing broke.

Drag Queen and RuGirl Pandora Boxx tweeted, “This is a tough one. From Murder, She Wrote to Bedknobs & Broomsticks, Angela Lansbury has been an entertainment icon to me. We named our dog Fletcher after Jessica Fletcher. Her amazing work will live on. We got to see her live in Blithe Spirit a few years back. She was wonderful. Rest In Peace, Dame Angela Lansbury. Thank you for your amazing work.”

Comedian Kathy Griffin tweeted, “I cannot tell you how many ladies and gays are crushed, moved and feeling nostalgic about something in the past with the news of the passing of the fabulous Dame Angela Lansbury.”

Actor George Takei wrote, “Angela Lansbury, who graced the stage for decades winning five Tony awards and brought the sleuthing Jessica Fletcher into our living rooms for a dozen years, has passed. A tale old as time, our beloved Mrs. Potts will sing lullabies to us now from the stars. Rest, great soul.