While you consider function fashions, there are most likely various girls who come to thoughts earlier than Angela Lansbury: girls who boldly and generally loudly shook issues up like Rosie the Riveter, Riot Grrrl rebels, and RBG. Possibly even Miss Piggy, although that might simply be me. In distinction, Lansbury, who died in 2022, is related to cozy Cabot Cove (the setting of her long-running sequence “Homicide, She Wrote”) and tea time as Disney’s Mrs. Potts. However don’t be fooled! In her life and plenty of memorable roles, Lansbury had (and nonetheless has) so much to say about going after what you need as a lady, avoiding stereotypes and dwelling a full life at any age.
As Jessica Fletcher, the mystery-writing novice sleuth in “Homicide, She Wrote,” Lansbury by no means prejudges. She makes use of logic, remark and old style analysis, generally upending stereotypical notions of race and faith in addition to gender. Michael Horton, who performed her character’s nephew, as soon as defined to me: “Angela was definitely progressive, so no manner Jessica was going to be something however that.” Each the actor and the character had been comfy being difficult people and wading via the complexities round them — as a result of in any case, issues in life and in good fiction are hardly ever easy. Solely a really nice detective, like Jessica, would be capable of work out on this manner {that a} canine had been educated to kill utilizing a whistle and a motorized gate (Season 1, “It’s a Canine’s Life”).
From the very starting, Lansbury formed Jessica and, ultimately, as govt producer, her storylines. It’s no shock then that there’s simple overlap between the 2.
To resolve every thriller, Jessica’s keen to get her arms soiled, actually and figuratively. Positive, generally meaning contaminating proof. Gloves? Who wants them! Her world isn’t “Legislation & Order”; it’s about persistence. When a legal underestimates her as a “lady of a sure age,” she turns that invisibility into her superpower. At different moments, when authority figures problem her, she pushes proper previous them as in the event that they weren’t even there.
As a preteen, it was that displayed energy that first drew me to Lansbury. I found “Homicide, She Wrote” and instantly fell in love together with her character as I watched her confidently write on her typewriter within the opening credit. Right here was a lady on her personal making a story a few corpse — and doing it with a smile on her face. I couldn’t get sufficient. Even higher, although, had been the various methods she outmaneuvered highly effective males in her investigations. She was like David combating Goliath, however higher as a result of I may see myself, or a minimum of who I wished to be, in her.
It was solely later that I discovered Lansbury herself had that very same grit. When she was younger, coping with the lack of her father and emigration throughout World Warfare II, and later, when she misplaced her Malibu dwelling throughout a 1970 wildfire.
Regardless of the tragedy on the middle of every case, “Homicide, She Wrote” episodes repeatedly finish with a freeze-frame close-up, Lansbury mid-laugh. And her joie de vivre was a signature in lots of different portrayals, together with Nellie Lovett in “Sweeney Todd” and Mame Dennis in “Mame,” her breakout Broadway function in 1966. In the event you want some cheering up, take a look at her duet with Bea Arthur, “Bosom Buddies,” on YouTube (you’re welcome). And for those who want some extra enjoyable, flip to Eglantine Worth within the 1971 kids’s film “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”: an impartial lady who sings, dances, bewitches fits of armor and saves Britain from a Nazi invasion — all whereas deigning to contemplate a romance with a person she undoubtedly doesn’t want.
After all, Lansbury at all times regarded good too, making it some extent to deal with herself — as she publicized in her e book and health video “Constructive Strikes.” As Jessica, Lansbury even turned a vogue icon (see Homicide She Look on Instagram).
For her, aesthetics weren’t about superficial self-regard. They had been about backing up how she wished to really feel inside. Typically, it was additionally about projecting confidence and even breaking out of a field society assigned her. In any case, on the very begin of her profession in Hollywood, as soon as she had settled in Los Angeles, Lansbury needed to take care of particular notions of female magnificence. She discovered herself enjoying aspect characters, villains and moms — by no means the glamorous romantic lead.
However Lansbury didn’t give in to those misguided concepts of her look or her expertise simply as she by no means gave into different trade norms, together with the traditional place of older girls (principally nowhere). When “Homicide, She Wrote” debuted, Lansbury was nearly 60. Her profession and life are a relentless reminder that we will be and do extra at any age, whether or not that includes writing, appearing or fixing grisly murders.
On the event of what would have been Lansbury’s one centesimal birthday — Oct. 16, 2025 — I have a good time her and her instance. Maybe Lansbury isn’t the obvious function mannequin or hero — no cape, however as an alternative an lovely blazer, broach and sensible pumps. However she fought her manner ahead in her personal manner. Typically in tune. Typically quietly. Typically over tea. And we will too.
Lily E. Hirsch is a musicologist and the creator of “Bizarre Al: Critically” and the forthcoming “Nowhere to Go however Up: What Angela Lansbury Can Educate Us About Residing a Large Life.”
