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Angela Lansbury’s Love for and Stability in Life
The actress’ stability of personhood is something we seek as human beings, and perhaps this is exactly why “Murder, She Wrote” was so immensely popular.
Angela Lansbury has died. Her death brings up one of those strange feelings: When someone lives to 96 years old and has managed to have such a wonderfully productive life, on the one hand there is a tremendous sense of awe in recognizing the gift it was and is. Yet, there is also sadness because with Lansbury (and many other famous people of her age who have recently died), we witness not only the end of a particular life but also of a living tie to something now wholly unattainable.
Although she was most recognized today for portraying the lovable sleuth, Jessica Fletcher, in the television series, “Murder, She Wrote,” Lansbury’s career spanned some 80 years in film, theater, and television. It’s impossible to think about Lansbury without thinking about Jessica Fletcher: a kind woman, a widow, who lives in a quiet town called Cabot Cove, who, in order to battle her loneliness, begins writing mystery novels, which make her instantly famous. Jessica Fletcher isn’t just a nice lady who makes excellent apple pies and is a good writer, however. She’s also a detective herself, and one who always outsmarts the murderer. She has a great sense of humor and common sense, and although she is perfectly kind, she is not naïve and doesn’t suffer fools.
In many ways, Angela Lansbury was a lot like Jessica Fletcher (minus the murder investigations, of course). One gets the sense she was a woman who knew exactly what she wanted, was not afraid to say it, was possessed of a great sense of humor, and had no time for affectation of any kind. In other words, a real person who has no problem being private but not fake. Angela Lansbury was certainly not some walking persona.
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Seeing Films and Culture in a Different Light
Love this. Did you see the Daily Mail article about how she moved her family to a cottage in rural Ireland for a year to get her kids out of California and off drugs? The family spent a year gardening and cooking, and both kids recovered fully. Top comment: "Wonderful Mum."