Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury is a
British character actress, long in the United States. The daughter of an actress and the granddaughter of a high-ranking politician, Lansbury studied acting from her youth, departing for the United States as the Second World War began. She was contracted by MGM while still a teenager and nominated for an Academy Award for her first film, Gaslight (1944).
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She ... achiev[ed] notable success in a number of Broadway plays and musicals, winning four Tony Awards in sixteen years.
www.imdb.com/…
I can’t seem to find stand-alone clips of much of anything these days, so the first clip that plays is the one I meant to embed; just hit the stop button for anything that tries to autoplay after that.
Although largely seen as a B-list star during this period, her appearance in the film The Manchurian Candidate (1962) received widespread acclaim and is cited as being one of her finest performances. Moving into musical theatre, Lansbury finally gained stardom for playing the leading role in the Broadway musical Mame (1966), which earned her a range of awards and established her as a gay icon.
en.wikipedia.org/…
At the 1989 Tony Awards (begins at around 0:40).
Mame and later:
In 1966, Lansbury took on the title role of Mame Dennis in the musical Mame, Jerry Herman's musical adaptation of the novel Auntie Mame…. Lansbury was forty-one years old, and it was her first starring role.[71] snip Mame gained Lansbury a cult gay following, something that she later attributed to the fact that Mame Dennis was "every gay person's idea of glamour ... "[75]
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Lansbury returned to London's West End… to play the character of Rose in the musical Gypsy. … The show eventually reached Broadway, where it … earned Lansbury her third Tony Award.[104]
en.wikipedia.org/…
In March 1979, Lansbury first appeared as Nellie Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a Stephen Sondheim musical directed by Harold Prince. Opening at the Uris Theatre, she starred alongside Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd, the murderous barber in 19th century London. … [I]t earned Lansbury her fourth Tony Award. en.wikipedia.org/…
The Pirates of Penzance:
Accepting four of her Tony Awards:
And the list of all her awards & nominations: en.wikipedia.org/...
A couple of shorts from Blithe Spirit: