Angela Lansbury Passed Away!

Dame Angela Lansbury died peaceful in Los Angeles.

Iconic actress and singer Angela Lansbury passed away a few days shy of her 97th birthday. The celebrated entertainer passed away in her sleep in Los Angeles. The family confirmed that the beloved entertainer who starred in numerous films and television shows was peaceful in passing.

She was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema at the time of her death. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including six Tony Awards (including Lifetime Achievement Award), six Golden Globe Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award and the Academy Honorary Award, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards, eighteen Primetime Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award.

"The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30am today, Tuesday October 11th, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday" said her family in a statement issued to NBC News and PEOPLE.

Lansbury's lead role as amateur detective Jessica Fletcher on the CBS drama, "Murder, She Wrote" made her something of an iconic entertainer.

Born in London in 1925, Angelea was the daughter of Moyna MacGill, an actress in her own right and socialist politician Edgar Lansbury. Her father died of stomach cancer when she turned 9 years old. In 1940, her mother and family moved to the U.S. to flee the Nazis conquest of Europe. 

At the age of 17, she was offered an opportunity. She met screenwriter John Van Drutenat at a party her mother hosted. She played the role of a conniving maid in a 1944 thriller called "Gaslight."

She earned her an Oscar nomination at the age of 20. 

Lansbury signed an executive deal with MGM. She was making $500 a week.

She had participated in films like "National Velvet" with Elizabeth Taylor, "The Harvey Girls" with Judy Garland, "If Winter Comes" with Deborah Kerr, "State of The Union" with Katharine Hepburn, "Kind Lady" with Ethel Barrymore, and "Season of Passion" with Anne Baxter.

She also had an iconic role in "The Manchurian Candidate" with Elvis Presley. Despite only being 10 years older than Presley, Lansbury managed to pull it off the role of a manipulative mother. That role made her feel like they were going to typecast her.

Moving into musical theatre, Lansbury finally gained stardom for playing the leading role in the Broadway musical Mame (1966), which won her her first Tony Award and established her as a gay icon.

Amidst difficulties in her personal life, Lansbury moved from California to County Cork, Ireland, in 1970, and continued with a variety of theatrical and cinematic appearances throughout that decade. These included leading roles in the stage musicals Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and The King and I, as well as in the hit Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Moving into television in 1984, she achieved worldwide fame as fictional writer and sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the American whodunit series Murder, She Wrote, which ran for twelve seasons until 1996, becoming one of the longest-running and most popular detective drama series in television history. Through Corymore Productions, a company that she co-owned with her husband Peter Shaw, Lansbury assumed ownership of the series and was its executive producer for the final four seasons. She also moved into voice work, contributing to animated films like Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Don Bluth's Anastasia (1997). She toured in a variety of international productions and continued to make occasional film appearances such as Nanny McPhee (2005) and Mary Poppins Returns (2018).

Lansbury received an Honorary Academy Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the BAFTA, a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award and five additional Tony Awards, six Golden Globes and an Olivier Award. She also was nominated for numerous other industry awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress three times, various Primetime Emmy Awards on 18 occasions and a Grammy Award. In 2014, Lansbury was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. She was the subject of three biographies.