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Showing posts from October, 2022

A Tribute to J.B. Fletcher and A.B. Lansbury

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When I grow up, I want to be Jessica Fletcher. That’s the thought I have every time I put on an episode of Murder, She Wrote , the cozy murder-mystery series starring the inimitable, incomparable Angela Lansbury, who we lost on October 11. I have innumerable favorite Lansbury performances, as so many of us do — after all, the woman conquered the stage, the silver screen, and television without ever breaking a sweat. There is, of course, the two roles everyone mentions, the chilling mother from the jaw-dropping The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and the precious Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast (1991), but I also adore her glorified cameo in the vastly underrated Dear Heart (1964), her flighty mother with a southern drawl in Blue Hawaii (1961), her beautifully bitchy princess in The Court Jester (1956) , her glamorous showgirl in The Harvey Girls (1946)… I was tempted to put on all of those films upon hearing of Lansbury’s death, but instead I turned to the character I realized I