Angela Lansbury

London, England, UK

Biography

Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury DBE (October 16, 1925 - October 11, 2022) was a British-American actress and singer who has appeared in theater, television, and film roles. Her career was spanned almost eight decades, much of it in the United States. Her work has received international attention. Her first film appearance was in the 1944 film Gaslight as a conniving maid, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Among her other films are The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Anastasia (1997). She expanded her repertoire to Broadway musicals and television in the 1950s and was particularly successful in Broadway productions of Gypsy, Mame and Sweeney Todd. Lansbury is perhaps best known to modern audiences for her 12 year run as writer and sleuth Jessica Fletcher on the U.S. television series Murder, She Wrote, in which she starred from 1984 to 1996. Her recent roles include Lady Adelaide Stitch in the 2005 film Nanny McPhee, Leona Mullen in the 2007 Broadway play Deuce, Madame Arcati in the 2009 Broadway revival of the play Blithe Spirit and Madame Armfeldt in the 2010 Broadway revival of the musical A Little Night Music. Respected for her versatility, Lansbury has won five Tony Awards, six Golden Globes, an Honorary Academy Award, and has been nominated for numerous other industry awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress on three occasions, and eighteen Emmy Awards. Description above from the Wikipedia article Angela Lansbury, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies

The Julie Andrews Hour is a television variety series starring Julie Andrews that was produced by ATV and distributed by ITC Entertainment. It aired on the ABC network in the United States. In order to secure Andrews for the series, Sir Lew Grade and ABC offered her an extremely lucrative contract. In 1963, when another major star, Judy Garland was signed to a weekly television variety series, it failed to catch on with the public. One of the main reasons for its demise was its constant change of format and the fact that critics and audiences felt that Garland was not shown off to her best advantage. In order to avoid that error, Andrews asked producer Nick Vanoff what the premise of the show would be about. Vanoff immediately answered her by saying "Julie Andrews...without Julie Andrews there is no 'Julie Andrews Hour'". The show premiered on ABC Wednesday, September 13, 1972 at 10:00 P.M. ET to rave reviews. Unfortunately, its time slot proved to be daunting because it was up against the popular CBS detective series, Cannon. Another reason for the low ratings was that the lateness of the hour was not conducive to family viewing since children were in bed by that time. On Thanksgiving Eve, November 22, 1972, "The Julie Andrews Hour" devoted an entire episode saluting Walt Disney. To make it more of a "family special", ABC switched the time slot of "The Julie Andrews Hour" that night to 8:30 P.M. and The ABC Wednesday Movie Of The Week to 9:30 P.M. The ratings improved a little so ABC then made a decision to alternate Andrews' time period each week This continued until January, 1973 when the series was moved to Saturday nights at 9:00 P.M. The ratings went from bad to worse as Andrews' chief competition was The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show on CBS. "The Julie Andrews Hour" was finally canceled by ABC after its 24th episode in April, 1973.

More info
The Julie Andrews Hour
1972