Once you consider function fashions, there are in all probability plenty of 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. Perhaps even Miss Piggy, although that would 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 lots of memorable roles, Lansbury had (and nonetheless has) loads 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 beginner sleuth in “Homicide, She Wrote,” Lansbury by no means prejudges. She makes use of logic, commentary and old school 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 actually progressive, so no method Jessica was going to be something however that.” Each the actor and the character have been snug being difficult people and wading via the complexities round them — as a result of in spite of everything, 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 method {that a} canine had been skilled 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 plain overlap between the 2.
To resolve every thriller, Jessica’s keen to get her palms soiled, actually and figuratively. Positive, generally which means contaminating proof. Gloves? Who wants them! Her world isn’t “Legislation & Order”; it’s about persistence. When a felony underestimates her as a “girl 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 power that first drew me to Lansbury. I found “Homicide, She Wrote” and instantly fell in love along 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 couple of corpse — and doing it with a smile on her face. I couldn’t get sufficient. Even higher, although, have been the numerous methods she outmaneuvered highly effective males in her investigations. She was like David preventing Goliath, however higher as a result of I may see myself, or at the least who I needed 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 Conflict 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 often 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. If you happen to want some cheering up, try her duet with Bea Arthur, “Bosom Buddies,” on YouTube (you’re welcome). And should you want some further enjoyable, flip to Eglantine Worth within the 1971 kids’s film “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”: an impartial girl who sings, dances, bewitches fits of armor and saves Britain from a Nazi invasion — all whereas deigning to think about a romance with a person she undoubtedly doesn’t want.
In fact, Lansbury all the time seemed good too, making it some extent to maintain herself — as she publicized in her guide and health video “Constructive Strikes.” As Jessica, Lansbury even grew to become a trend icon (see Murder She Look on Instagram).
For her, aesthetics weren’t about superficial self-regard. They have been about backing up how she needed to really feel inside. Generally, 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 cope with 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 business norms, together with the standard place of older girls (principally nowhere). When “Homicide, She Wrote” debuted, Lansbury was virtually 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 a 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 a substitute an cute blazer, broach and sensible pumps. However she fought her method ahead in her personal method. Generally in track. Generally quietly. Generally over tea. And we will too.
Lily E. Hirsch is a musicologist and the creator of “Weird Al: Seriously” and the forthcoming “Nowhere to Go but Up: What Angela Lansbury Can Teach Us About Living a Big Life.”
