How Rich Was Angela Lansbury Upon Her Death at Age 96? Irish-British American actress and singer Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury DBE was born on October 16, 1925. She has made multiple films, stage, and television appearances. Her career is one of the longest in the entertainment world, having lasted nearly 80 years.
Her work has received considerable attention on a global scale, and a significant chunk of that time was spent in the United States. After Olivia de Havilland passed away in July 2020, Lansbury—one of the remaining Hollywood actors from the Golden Age—became the award’s first living nominee.
Angela Lansbury Early Life
In Regent’s Park, London, England, on October 16, 1925, Angela Brigid Lansbury was born. The Father of Angela was a politician and owner of a wood veneering business who was raised in an upper-middle-class home. Irish actress Moyna MacGill, who performed in numerous films and West End plays, was her mother.
Lansbury’s father lost dead from stomach cancer when he was just nine years old. This led her to use acting as an “escape,” adopting many personas as a coping method. Lansbury said that her father’s passing continued to have a significant impact on her well into the 2010s.
During this time, Angela also developed a movie obsession and mastered the piano. She afterward pursued acting training in West London and started making her stage debuts. Angela’s mother made the decision to evacuate her children from London when World War 2 started in order to avoid the bombing raids.
The family moved to the US, arriving in Montreal, Canada, and then making their way to New York City. Lansbury completed her acting studies at the Feagin School of Drama and Radio while she was in New York. She made another appearance on stage. In 1942, Lansbury finally received his diploma from the theatrical school.
Angela Lansbury Early Career
At the age of 16, Lansbury began acting alongside her mother, earning $60 per week for her nightclub singing. She subsequently moved to Los Angeles to seek a career in movies, following her mother there. Angela found employment at a department shop and eventually used her $28 weekly salary to support the entire family.
Angela Lansbury 1950s Success
When Lansbury met John van Druten, a British dramatist who had just finished writing the “Gaslight” script, she made her real breakthrough. At the age of 17, Angela was hired as a cockney maid beside Ingrid Bergman and received $500 a week while working on set.
Lansbury received special accolades from critics and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Following the signing of a contract with MGM, Lansbury participated in a number of more movies over the following few years. Before her contract expired in 1952, these films included “National Velvet,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” and eleven more.
Many commentators claimed that Lansbury’s career suffered in the years that followed as a result of this MGM deal as she was frequently miscast in subpar movies. Lansbury continued her theatre career and made radio appearances during the ensuing years.
Despite being in her 20s and having terminated her contract with MGM, Angela was cast in several movies as a much older woman. She rose to fame again because of movies like “The Long Hot Summer” and “The Reluctant Debutante.“
Lansbury joined the cast of “The Manchurian Candidate,” portraying a villain, after a number of subsequent theatre and cinema performances. She was nominated for another Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for this performance, which turned out to be one of her most noteworthy roles.
Angela Lansbury 1990s to the Present
One of her favorite roles was in the Disney animated adaptation of “Beauty and the Beast” from 1991. Mrs. Potts as played by Angela became recognizable. Lansbury mostly returned to the stage from the late 1990s onward, though she did continue to feature in a number of television programs.
The movies “Nanny McPhee,” “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” and “Mary Poppins Returns” all included these actors in supporting roles. It was revealed in 2019 that Lansbury would perform in “The Importance of Being Earnest” on Broadway once more.
Angela Lansbury Relationships
The late actor Richard Cromwell was Angela Lansbury’s first husband, whom she wed when she was 19 years old. Cromwell, who was 35 at the time, wed Angela in 1945 but later got a divorce. Lansbury afterward found out that Richard was homos*exual.
Peter Shaw, another actor, became her second husband; they were married in 1949. The couple had two children together over the course of their 54-year marriage. Shaw passed away in 2003.
Angela Lansbury Family Problems
In the 1960s, Angela learned that her kids had developed drug addictions when they were teenagers. While Angela and Peter initially used marijuana, they soon switched to heroin and cocaine. Even Lansbury acknowledged that her daughter Deidre had ties to Charles Manson’s supporters.
Angela moved the entire family to County Cork, Ireland, in an effort to correct her children. Both of her children eventually developed good hygiene. Later, Lansbury took responsibility for her children’s drug usage, claiming she had lost sight of her family in favor of her entertainment career.
What was Angela Lansbury Net Worth?
At the time of her passing in October 2022, British-American actress and singer Angela Lansbury had a net worth of $70 million. Angela Lansbury was a living example of the long tradition of filmmaking with a career that dated back to the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood.
She was the oldest living nominee for an Academy Award at the time of her passing. Lansbury worked for more than eight decades in total. Depending on the year you were born, the name Angela Lansbury may conjure up thoughts of a youngish woman singing, an elderly woman doing puzzles, or a senior citizen with a gift for black humor.
For seventy years, Angela Lansbury has been a popular actor. When she was seventeen, the almost-ninety-year-old secured her first professional position and hasn’t stopped since. She could show it with her credentials and her honors.
Along with “National Velvet,” “State of the Union,” “The Court Jester,” “The Reluctant Debutante,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” “Death on the Nile,” “The Company of Wolves,” and “Nanny McPhee,” she also starred in several more movies. She has also appeared in episodes of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Touched by an Angel,” “Murder She Wrote,” “Studio 57,” and other television series.
She has performed in numerous Broadway and West End productions in addition to her work in films, including the original Broadway production of “Sweeney Todd,” the critically acclaimed 1973 revival of “Gypsy,” the award-winning 1979 revival of “The King and I,” and the original Broadway production of “Mame.”
After experiencing World War II in London, Angela moved to the US and quickly got a job performing. Following a handful of cinematic jobs, she spent the following time mostly concentrating on stage acting.
She is also well known for her appearances on television, particularly in “Murder, She Wrote.” Lansbury still makes appearances in movies nowadays, most recently in “Mary Poppins Returns” from 2018.
Angela Lansbury, the British-born actress whose career spanned eight decades and produced indelible portraits of a wide range of characters from villainesses to sleuths and light comic roles in movies, on the stage and on television, died at age 96, her family said pic.twitter.com/ZNmVp17jM3
— Reuters Showbiz (@ReutersShowbiz) October 11, 2022
Angela Lansbury received many accolades and prizes during the course of her career. Among them are an Honorary Oscar, six Golden Globes, five Tony Awards, and an Olivier Award. She received three different Academy Award nominations.
Amazingly, despite being nominated for an Emmy 18 times, Angela never took home the prize. Her life story, three biographies have been written.
Final Reflections