Late film icon Angela Lansbury’s surprising Aussie relative

An Australian public figure has paid tribute to his surprising relative, Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning actress Angela Lansbury.

Actress Dame Angela Lansbury, famous for Murder, She Wrote, has died aged 96, with an Australian public figure paying tribute to his surprising relative.

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull thanked Lansbury for the “joy and love” she had shared with the world in a Twitter post on Wednesday morning.

“You first dazzled me when I was 4 & you were Aunty Angela making a movie in Australia,” he wrote. “In later years we always had politics & showbiz to talk and laugh about. Rest In Peace dear Angie.”

Thank you Angela for the joy & love you have shared with all the world all your life. You first dazzled me when I was 4 & you were Aunty Angela making a movie in Australia. In later years we always had politics & showbiz to talk and laugh about. Rest In Peace dear Angie. https://t.co/DOKRcn0hw9

— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) October 11, 2022

Turnbull also reshared an earlier post from 2013.

“With cousin Angela Lansbury after seeing her star in Driving Miss Daisy at the Theatre Royal Sydney,” the caption read alongside a picture of the two of them.

Ancestry content director Ben Mercer has previously said Lansbury was a distant connection on Turnbull’s mother’s side of the family.

The Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning actress “died peacefully in her sleep” at her home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, her family announced. Her death was just five days before her 97th birthday.

“In addition to her three children, Anthony, Deirdre and David, she is survived by three grandchildren, Peter, Katherine and Ian, plus five great grandchildren and her brother, producer Edgar Lansbury,” a statement read.

“She was preceded in death by her husband of 53 years, Peter Shaw. A private family ceremony will be held at a date to be determined.”

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Angela Lansbury pictured in October 2019. Picture: Robyn Beck/AFP

Lansbury’s career spanned seven decades and she received her first Oscar nomination at just 19 for her first film Gaslight in 1944.

She is best known for her role as Jessica Fletcher in the US crime drama series Murder, She Wrote, which aired from 1984 to 1996.

She also stared in musical theatre productions, including Sweeney Todd, and notably voiced Mrs Potts in the 1991 Disney film Beauty and the Beast.

Younger audiences will recognise her as Aunt Adelaide in the 2005 film Nanny McPhee.

Her career spanned seven decades. Picture: Robyn Beck/AFP

Lansbury married her first husband, fellow actor Richard Cromwell, at 19. He came out as gay nine months after their marriage and they separated.

She described this as her first great romance, which was a “terrible tragedy”. The pair remained friends until his death from cancer in 1960.

In 1949, she married actor Peter Shaw, who died in 2003.

Lansbury was made by a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2014.