![]() ![]() ![]() But the ones that take their material from literature often teach us something about a country’s culture and sense of justice. Having watched more European mysteries than I can count, not all are as sublime. Ironically, the corrective to this genre came from Lansbury’s original home across the Atlantic in the form of European dramas that explore their crimes with more depth and often more darkness. The most visible Lansbury vehicle was the epitome of the cheery-even-though-it’s-murder American whodunit, a show whose simplicity for more than a decade failed to challenge either its star or its audience. ”But the audience felt they could solve it along with me.” Viewers were “very comfortable” with her character, she added. “The mysteries were all formula stuff, there’s no question about that,” Lansbury told Washington Post critic Tom Shales in 1996 at the end of its run. The secret of its success? In part, it was not aiming too high. Nobody expected it to be a huge hit, but it was, drawing weekly audiences of 30 million. ![]() As it turned out, she was the kind of older person these viewers craved. Lansbury’s Jessica Fletcher was energetic, successful, observant and people-loving. And it proved to be one of the most successful.ĬBS took a leap of faith when the network scheduled “Murder, She Wrote” right after “60 Minutes,” hoping its audience, which skewed old and educated, might stick around to watch. “Murder, She Wrote,” however, featured not only a woman, but an older one at that. “Cagney and Lacey” and “Kate & Allie,” introduced a little earlier, had more staying power. The women-led shows that debuted that year included “ Jessie,” starring Lindsay Wagner as a police psychiatrist, and “ Glitter,” starring Morgan Brittany as a magazine reporter, both of which rapidly slid into obscurity. And we can’t forget that she was part of a “watershed” 1984 season when network TV discovered that “take charge” women could be the stars of prime-time series. Granted, Lansbury made the series far better than it would have been otherwise. Angela Lansbury stars as mystery writer and crime solver Jessica Fletcher on the CBS television series "Murder, She Wrote" in 1990. Lovett, the maker of human-flesh pies in the Broadway play “Sweeney Todd,” and Laurence Harvey’s evil mother in the film “The Manchurian Candidate.” She then assumed a very different persona for the long-running mystery series that made her famous in the United States, “Murder, She Wrote.” But no tears should be shed for that production. The world should mourn the loss of Angela Lansbury, a gifted actress who died this week at 96 after a career of more than seven decades.īy her own description, she played roles that spanned “b-es on wheels and people’s mothers,” including Mrs. ![]()
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