Academy Award nominee and long-time TV mystery novelist Angela Lansbury kicked off her career on Broadway, but lived in Douglaston.
The actress was born in London in 1925 and moved to New York with her mother at age 15 just prior to the London Blitz of World War II.
She lived in Douglaston while attending the Feagin School of Dramatic Art on Fifth Avenue.
Lansbury moved with her mother to Hollywood, where she scored her first film role at age 18 as Ingrid Bergman’s maid in the thriller “Gaslight.”
She picked up her first Best Supporting Actress nod for her performance and then a second nomination the following year for her work in “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
During the 1950s, the actress performed in successful Broadway productions of “Gypsy,” “Mame” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”
In the years that followed, Lansbury starred in a number of critically acclaimed films, including John Frankenheimer’s “The Manchurian Candidate,” “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and “Death on the Nile” as well as voice work in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”
But in the 1980s, she landed the role for which she is most known - mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher in “Murder, She Wrote,” a popular television series that aired for 12 years.
Lansbury has won five Tony Awards and six Golden Globes. She has also been nominated three times for an Oscar and 18 times for an Emmy, but has never won either award.
Her most recent theater work includes “Blithe Spirit” and “The Best Man.” She also appeared last summer with Jim Carrey in “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” and will have a role in the film “Adaline,” which will be released later this year.
