隴山隴西郡
寧靜純我心 感得事物人 寫樸實清新. 閑書閑話養閑心,閑筆閑寫記閑人;人生無虞懂珍惜，以沫相濡字字真。
at 16, she acts on "Gas light" With Ingrid Bergman & Charles Boyer ((Charles Boyer (French: [bwaje]; 28 August 1899 – 26 August 1978) was a French actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976.[1] )). I knew her film from
Global fame[edit]
Murder, She Wrote: 1984–1996[edit]
In 1983, Angela Lansbury was offered two main television roles, one in a sitcom and the other in a detective series; unable to do both, her agents advised her to accept the former although Lansbury instead went with the latter.[129] The series, Murder, She Wrote, centred on the character of Jessica Fletcher, a retired school teacher from the fictional town of Cabot Cove, Maine, who became a successful detective novelist after her husband's death, also solving murders that she encounters during her travels; Lansbury described the character as "an American Miss Marple".[130] The series was created by Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson, and William Link, who had earlier had success with Columbo, and the role of Jessica Fletcher had been first offered to Jean Stapleton, who declined the role, as did Doris Day.[131] The pilot episode, "The Murder of Sherlock Holmes", premiered on CBS on September 30, 1984, with the rest of the first season airing on Sundays from 8 to 9 p.m. Although critical reviews were mixed, it proved highly popular, with the pilot having a Nielsen rating of 18.9 and the first season being rated top in its time slot.[132] Designed as inoffensive family viewing, despite its topic the show eschewed depicting violence or gore, following the "whodunit" format rather than those of most contemporary U.S. crime shows; Lansbury herself commented that "best of all, there's no violence. I hate violence."[133]
Lansbury was defensive about Jessica Fletcher, having creative input over the character's costumes, makeup and hair, and rejecting pressure from network executives to put her in a relationship, believing that the character should remain a strong single female.[134] When she believed that a scriptwriter had made Jessica do or say things that did not fit with the character's personality, Lansbury ensured that the script was changed.[135] She saw Jessica as a role model for older female viewers, praising her "enormous, universal appeal – that was an accomplishment I never expected in my entire life."[136] Lansbury biographers Rob Edelman and Audrey E. Kupferberg described the series as "a television landmark" in the U.S. for having an older female character as the protagonist, thereby paving the way for later series like The Golden Girls.[137] Lansbury herself noted that "I think it's the first time a show has really been aimed at the middle aged audience",[138] and although it was most popular among senior citizens, it gradually gained a younger audience; by 1991, a third of viewers were under fifty.[139] It gained continually high ratings throughout most of its run, outdoing rivals in its time slot such as Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories on NBC.[140] In February 1987, a spin-off was produced, The Law & Harry McGraw, although it was short-lived.[141]
– Angela Lansbury, 2014[142]
As the show went on, Lansbury assumed a larger role behind the scenes.[143] In 1989, her own company, Corymore Productions, began co-producing the show with Universal.[144] Nevertheless, she began to tire of the series, and in particular the long working hours, stating that the 1990–91 season would be the show's last.[145] She changed her mind after being appointed executive producer for the 1992–93 season, something that she felt "made it far more interesting to me."[146] For the eighth season, the show's setting moved to New York City, where Jessica had taken a job teaching criminology at Manhattan University; the move was an attempt to attract younger viewers and was encouraged by Lansbury.[147] Having become a "Sunday-night institution" in the U.S., the show's ratings improved during the early 1990s, becoming a Top Five programme.[148] However, CBS executives, hoping to gain a larger audience, moved it to Thursdays at 8pm, opposite NBC's new sitcom, Friends. Lansbury was angry at the move, believing that it ignored the show's core audience.[149] The final episode of the series aired in May 1996, and ended with Lansbury voicing a "Goodbye from Jessica" message at the end.[150] Tom Shales wrote in The Washington Post, "The title of the show's last episode, "Death by Demographics," is in itself something of a protest. 'Murder, She Wrote' is partly a victim of commercial television's mad youth mania."[151] At the time it tied the original Hawaii Five-O as the longest-running detective drama series in television history,[148][152] and the role would prove to be the most successful and prominent of Lansbury's career.[153] Lansbury initially had plans for a Murder She Wrote television film that would be a musical with a score composed by Jerry Herman.[154] While this project didn't materialise, it was transformed into Mrs Santa Claus – in which Lansbury played Santa Claus' wife – which proved to be a ratings hit.[155]
Throughout the run of Murder, She Wrote, Lansbury had continued making appearances in other television films, miniseries and cinema.[156] In 1986, she co-hosted the New York Philharmonic's televised tribute to the centenary of the Statue of Liberty with Kirk Douglas.[157] In 1986 she appeared as the protagonist's mother in Rage of Angels: The Story Continues,[156] and in 1988 portrayed Nan Moore – the mother of a victim of the real-life Korean Air Lines Flight 007 plane crash – in Shootdown; being a mother herself, she had been "enormously touched by the incident".[158] 1989 saw her featured in The Shell Seekers as an Englishwoman recuperating from a heart attack,[159] and in 1990 she starred in The Love She Sought as an American school teacher who falls in love with a Catholic priest while visiting Ireland; Lansbury thought it "a marvelous woman's story."[160] She next starred as the Cockney Mrs Harris in a film adaptation of the novel Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris, which was directed by her son and executive produced by her stepson.[161] Her highest profile cinematic role since The Manchurian Candidate was as the voice of the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in the 1991 Disney animation Beauty and the Beast, an appearance that she considered to be a gift to her three grandchildren. Lansbury performed the title song to the film, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.[162]
Lansbury's Murder, She Wrote fame resulted in her being employed to appear in advertisements and infomercials for Bufferin, MasterCard and the Beatrix Potter Company.[163] In 1988, she released a video titled Angela Lansbury's Positive Moves: My Personal Plan for Fitness and Well-Being, in which she outlined her personal exercise routine, and in 1990 published a book with the same title co-written with Mimi Avins, which she dedicated to her mother.[164] As a result of her work she was awarded a CBE by the British government, given to her in a ceremony by Charles, Prince of Wales at the British consulate in Los Angeles.[165] While living most of the year in California, Lansbury spent Christmases and summers at Corymore House, her farmhouse overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at Ballywilliam, near Churchtown South, County Cork, which she had had specially built as a family home in 1991.[166]
Personality and personal life[edit]
– Friend and co-star Len Cariou, 2012[194]
Lansbury describes herself as "an amalgam of British, Irish and American" although throughout her life she has spoken with an English accent.[5] She holds Irish citizenship.[195] Biographer Martin Gottfried characterized her as "Meticulous. Cautious. Self-editing. Deliberate. It is what the British call reserved",[196] adding that she was "as concerned, as sensitive, and as sympathetic as anyone might want in a friend".[197] Also noting that she had "a profound sense of privacy",[198] he added that she disliked attempts at flattery.[199]
