Angela Lansbury, Beauty and the Beast and Murder, She Wrote star, dies at 96

Angela Lansbury, the beloved film, television, and theater actress best known for her role as Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote, has died. She was 96.

Lansbury's death was confirmed Tuesday by her family in a statement to multiple outlets, including People. "The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 a.m. today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday," they said.

Lansbury was nominated for a whopping 18 Emmys throughout her career, most for her performance as mystery writer Jessica Fletcher on the classic CBS series Murder, She Wrote, which ran from 1984 through 1996. One of her other most iconic roles was the voice of Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast, for which she performed the film's title song.

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Lansbury was nominated for three Oscars, including for her first film, 1944's Gaslight. She was nominated again for The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Manchurian Candidate, and she received an honorary Academy Award in 2013. Lansbury was also prolific on stage, winning five Tonys for Mame, Dear World, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Blithe Spirit, and she was just honored with a lifetime achievement award Tony in June 2022.

In recent years, Lansbury continued to appear in films like 2018's Mary Poppins Returns, and she reportedly has a cameo in Netflix's upcoming Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Lansbury is survived by her brother, three children, three grandchildren, and five great grandchildren, the family's statement noted. Her husband, Peter Shaw, died in 2003.

"A tale old as time, our beloved Mrs. Potts will sing lullabies to us now from the stars," Star Trek star George Takei tweeted. "Rest, great soul."