Lansbury was born on October 16, 1925, to an upper-middle-class family. Although her birthplace is frequently given as Poplar, East London, she has denied this, claiming that while she has ancestral ties to Poplar, she was born in Regent’s Park, Central London. Her mother was Belfast-born Irish actress Moyna Macgill (born Charlotte Lillian McIldowie), who appeared in several films as well as on stage in London’s West End.
Her father was the wealthy English timber merchant and politician Edgar Lansbury, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and former mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar. Her paternal grandfather was Labour Party leader George Lansbury, whom she regarded as a “giant in my youth” and felt “awed” by. Angela had an older half-sister, Isolde, who was the result of Moyna’s previous marriage to Reginald Denham. Angela was four years old when her mother gave birth to twin boys, Bruce and Edgar, forcing the Lansburys to relocate from their Poplar flat to a house in Mill Hill, North London, and then on weekends to a rural farm in Berrick Salome, Oxfordshire.
Angela Lansbury’s top movies and TV shows
She signed with MGM and landed her first film roles in Gaslight (1944), National Velvet (1944), and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), for which she won several awards. She went on to appear in eleven more MGM films, mostly in minor roles, and after her contract expired in 1952, she began to supplement her film work with stage appearances.
Angela Lansbury awards and nominations
Lansbury was one of the last surviving stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age at the time of her death. She won six Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award), six Golden Globe Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, and the Academy Honorary Award, and was nominated for three Academy Awards, eighteen Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award.
