Calling all #fangelas: my enduring love for the queen of TV and film Angela Lansbury

It was a battle of wills every Sunday afternoon between my father and me. Could I be persuaded to swap my choice of video rental (yes video, I was an 80s child) for the promise of some grown-up sweets that I otherwise wasn’t allowed? Chocolate limes, his choice, rotten things.

ot a chance. I clutched my bag of rainbow drops and the then weekly copy of Bedknobs and Broomsticks and my parents no doubt gave some deep breathes before settling into another 130 minutes of me flinging myself about the living room, singing all the songs and desperately wanting to be trainee witch Eglantine Price’s friend.

I also wanted to learn witchcraft through a correspondence course, like EP.

It was the beginning of a decades-long admiration for Angela Lansbury, who died yesterday aged 96, five days before her 97th birthday. She was one of the last actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age and I feel like I’ve lost my long-term TV friend.

A dedicated #fangela (though surely #fansbury works just as well), enjoying Eglantine’s capers during the Second World War and the placement of three children into the relative safety of her rural idyll — minus the magical adventures of course — was not my first experience of the actress.

In The Last Unicorn — an American-Japanese cartoon I suggest you watch from behind your hands, it’s quite unsettling — she voices the character of Mommy Fortuna, a witch who uses illusory magic to run something called the Midnight Carnival, showcasing mythical creatures are in no way special. Another witch, one willing to only use her powers for evil.

But that was the skill of Angela and her career: pigeonhole her all you like, base her in Cabot Cove, Maine, and keep her there with her typewriter and clam bakes. But her acting career saw her play Oscar nominated roles — she’d two nominations before the age of 20 — and run the full gamut of characterisation. Oh, and there’s the small mention of an honorary Oscar, 18 Emmy nominations, one Grammy nod, six Golden Globes, five Tony Awards and the Lifetime Achievement Tony Award earlier this year.

She could play villain or hero, the person you’d root for or the character you hoped would meet a sticky end. One does not get so many award nods by playing it safe.

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Ingrid Bergman, Angela Lansbury and Charles Boyer on the set of Gaslight

Sunset Boulevard

Ingrid Bergman, Angela Lansbury and Charles Boyer on the set of Gaslight

Just a few lines as a maid of dubious intent in 1994’s Gaslight was enough to secure a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, stoking Ingrid Bergman’s paranoia as her husband (Charles Boyer) confines her to the marital home.

Who could forget her role in 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate, the master manipulator wife of a US Senator, proving a homegrown threat to democracy.

She could ham it up too — a personal favourite was her performance of Agatha Christie’s Salome Otterbourne who comes off pretty badly during a trip down the Nile.

Perhaps it’s fitting that a woman from Belfast’s Ormeau Road is writing about a woman whose mother also came from the locality.

Angela’s mother, Charlotte Lillian McIldowie, later Moyna Macgill, was born in Eglantine Avenue and listed in 2020 as one of Ireland’s greatest film actors. Essentially, that makes Angela a Belfastie too, no?

The apple clearly didn’t fall too far from the tree, then, as the young Angela built a reputation — and career — which lasted eight decades.

Though initially describing herself as an actress who could sing, she was swiftly dubbed the First Lady of Musical Theatre in the 1960s.

Singing was key to her career. Who didn’t mouth the words to Beauty and the Beast as Mrs Potts serenades the unexpected couple in the 1992 film? Which fans gave a wry grin when a Murder, She Wrote character sings Goodbye Little Yellow Bird, a song which Angela sang in the 1945 Picture of Dorian Gray?

As an aside, google the video of Angela and Jerry Orbach (who voiced Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast) singing Be Our Guest and you’re in for a treat.

Jerry had previously popped up on Murder, She Wrote as PI Harry McGraw — it was a friendship that spanned the decades.

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Actors Rupert Everett and Angela Lansbury bow at curtain call at the Broadway opening night of Blithe Spirit, 2009

Actors Rupert Everett and Angela Lansbury bow at curtain call at the Broadway opening night of Blithe Spirit, 2009

“To have Jerry on the set with me, it was like a breath of Broadway,” Angela said in 2005.

It is always wonderful when the people that you admire turn out to be people worth admiring and aside from her acting talent, her philanthropy should also be remembered.

She helped fund the restoration of a memorial to her late father’s first wife, Minnie Lansbury, a prominent London suffragette.

In 2008, she sent a message to be read at the unveiling, saying: “My Father, Edgar Lansbury once wrote ‘The world’s best hopes depend upon the pure in heart.’ In her brief lifetime Minnie Lansbury embodied that spirit of which he spoke.”

It’s believed that on Murder, She Wrote, she hired guest actors of the Golden Age as it allowed them to earn sufficient union points needed for pensions and insurance.

In fact, Angela had the recurring role of Cabot Cove librarian Jean O’Neill created for actress Madlyn Rhue who was at risk of losing her health insurance because, with MS, she could no longer work enough hours.

Speaking of Murder, She Wrote, for all the naysayers, America’s version of Miss Marple was ahead of its time. Jessica Beatrice Fletcher was never a frail little old lady, she was every bit the embodiment of positive ageing.

A widow, without children, living her best life, writing books, travelling the world, often solo, and solving approximately 274 murders over the 12-series show.

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Angela Lansbury (centre) in the first episode of Murder, She Wrote titled The Murder of Sherlock Holmes

CBS via Getty Images

Angela Lansbury (centre) in the first episode of Murder, She Wrote titled The Murder of Sherlock Holmes

Protective over her character, Angela had creative input into JB’s clothing, hair and make-up, rejecting the idea of giving her a significant other and praising her ‘enormous, universal appeal.’

“My love for Angela has been constant. I remember watching Murder, She Wrote while deathly hungover in Sicily, dubbed in Italian, and it was still bloody epic,” said fellow #fangela and BF Louise last night.

It’s easy to see how MSW pathed the way for another classic programme, The Golden Girls. Suddenly it was reasonable to see middle-aged protagonists on screen.

Recent Hollywood stars such as George Clooney, Andy Garcia, Bryan Cranston and Courteney Cox appeared in Jessica’s short but sweet investigations.

I have all 12 series on DVD, but our TV planner remains full of episodes. My favourite? The Return of Preston Giles, naturally.

Angela Lansbury has been in my eyeline since I was about four and watched The Last Unicorn for the first time (I repeat, it’s quite frightening). I have grown up watching her — she was a formative and very important part of my childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Like many, I’ll miss her talent very much, but appreciate the back catalogue she’s left us.