Angela Lansbury Died in Her Sleep 5 Days Before Her 97th Birthday—Here’s Where She Was When She Passed

Many fans of Angela Lansbury over the course of her 80-year career may be curious about her untimely demise and the circumstances surrounding it. Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury (aka Lansbury) passed away on October 11, 2022. She was 96 years old. She was born in London.

She made her first appearance on the Hollywood scene in 1944’s Gaslight, for which she was nominated for an Oscar at the 17th Annual Academy Awards. A year later, for her role in The Picture of Dorian Gray, for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, Lansbury was nominated for an Academy Award for a second time. Lansbury’s first Tony Award came in 1966 for her performance as Mame in the Broadway musical. She is most known for her major role as Jessica Fletcher on CBS’ Murder, She Wrote, which aired for a total of 12 seasons (from 1984–1995) and made Lansbury a household name. In addition to acting as showrunner, she also executive produced the show.

Lansbury was honored with an Honorary Academy Award, a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award from the BAFTA, a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award, five Tony Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, and an Olivier Award during the course of her career. Additionally, she received 19 total nominations, including 18 Emmys and a Grammy. In 2014, the late Queen Elizabeth II knighted her as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In such a case, how did Angela Lansbury pass away, and what ultimately caused her death? Angela Lansbury’s death and the circumstances surrounding it are detailed here.

How Did Angela Lansbury Die?

The circumstances of Angela Lansbury’s passing are unknown. In a statement, Lansbury’s family revealed that she passed away at 1:30 a.m. on October 11, 2022, while sleeping in her Los Angeles, California, home. On October 16, 2022, just five days before her 97th birthday, she passed away. On Tuesday, October 11, 2022, at 1:30 a.m., just five days before her 97th birthday, Dame Angela Lansbury died quietly in her sleep at home in Los Angeles, according to a statement released by her daughters.

There are three people who will carry on Lansbury’s legacy: her stepson David Shaw, her son Anthony Shaw, and her daughter Deirdre Shaw. Lansbury was married to her second husband, Peter Shaw, from 1949 until his death from a heart attack on January 29, 2003. Age-wise, he was 84. She leaves behind her “three children, Anthony, Deirdre, and David; three grandchildren, Peter, Katherine, and Ian; and five great-grandchildren; and her brother, producer Edgar Lansbury,” according to the statement. Her spouse of 53 years, Peter Shaw, died first. At a later point, there will be a small, intimate family ceremony.

What Was Angela Lansbury’s Cause Of Death?

Her relatives said that Lansbury passed away from natural causes. In July 2005, Lansbury had knee replacement surgery to replace the failing cartilage in her knee joint with metal and plastic. She lived another 17 years following the procedure before her death. “I found that people were helping me across the street. I had to pull myself up the stairs.”

Lansbury told that she had to “drag herself up the stairs” because her “crippled” knees were the result of her early life as a dancer. As I became older, I realized that despite my physical youth, I was still a child at heart. ‘I’m not going to be dancing with the stars at this stage in my life,’ she continued “But I want to dance and bop around, and I did, and I can.” She delayed surgery because she thought it would be too painful.

After Lansbury had hip replacement surgery in May 1994, she decided to have the same procedure done on her knees. A CBS representative for Murder, She Wrote informed at the time, “She has had some problem with (the hip) but not to the extent that it impinged on her work. She knew that if she was going to deal with it this was the time to do it, the minute she went on hiatus,” the author writes. Furthermore, Lansbury’s death was preceded by a protracted battle with arthritis, the signs of which she first noticed in the 1990s. In 2022, after Lansbury had missed a tribute to her at the 75th Annual Tony Awards, a source told  “Angela suffers a number of things, such as arthritis.”

Angela decided that staying at home was the safest option rather than going to a theatre with six thousand other people while new cases of COVID keep cropping up. Lansbury told three months before her death that she was still healthy despite having to give up activities like gardening due to arthritis. Still, she enjoyed doing things like cooking, reading, and doing crossword puzzles despite her struggles with her weight, as she revealed  “I take lots of vitamins and get enough sleep. I believe age should not stop you from keeping on. Here I am, I still go on, you know, like the tides.”

Never forget that Angela Lansbury moved her teenager children from California to Ireland to save her daughter from Charles Manson’s cult and help her son get clean from drugs at the risk of losing her career, and they are still alive and well today because she put them first. RIP pic.twitter.com/JMznhwGSld

— Margaret “Molly” Rasberry🏳️‍🌈 BLM🔜919filmfest (@RasberryRazz) October 11, 2022

Lansbury told in 2022 that she had started smoking when she was 14 years old and hadn’t stopped until 30 years before her death. “I was able to take a cigarette out of a packet in my purse and smoke it, which I hadn’t been able to let on, that I had been smoking from the time I was, really, about 14 years old,” she remarked at the time. “I say that without any sense of pride at all. And I stopped smoking 30 years ago. But yet – I don’t know if you remember, but I do smoke a rather long Cigarettello in the movie. And that was part of the business in the movie of Gaslight. But they only let me puff it. And I wasn’t allowed to inhale, as Mr. Clinton would say.”

In an interview in 2014, Lansbury described why she thought Murder, She Wrote was a success. “I know why [Murder, She Wrote was a success],” she remarked. “There was never any blood, never any violence. And there was also a satisfying conclusion to a whodunnit. The jigsaw was complete. And I loved Jessica’s everywoman character. I think that’s what made her so acceptable to an across-the-board audience.”

In 2017, Lansbury discussed her feelings on being nominated for an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for each season of Murder, She Wrote while never winning   She exclaimed, ” It pissed me off!” at the time. “Because I just didn’t add up at all in Hollywood. Everywhere else in the U.S., Murder, She Wrote was popular, but not in Hollywood — no, no, no, they didn’t want to know. I wasn’t upset… well, I was upset, actually. It rankled me. I can’t claim it didn’t.” Despite her lack of awards recognition, Lansbury informed Star2 in 2018 of how proud she was of the show. “It was a slice of my career that was totally unconnected to anything that I had done before,” she remarked. “Making Jessica Fletcher the character I ended up playing took me several years. She was initially somewhat childlike, but I managed to transform her into a sophisticated woman my age. That’s why she resonated with so many people, I believe; she represented a part of the human experience that was familiar and relatable.

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