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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Wednesday, October 12, 2022

entry arrow6:18 PM | Dame Angela Lansbury, 1925-2022



I first encountered her as an evil matriarch intent on political dominion even through the cold brainwashing of her own son in The Manchurian Candidate [1962]. And then I bumped into her again as a tart English housemaid giving Ingrid Bergman the side eye in Gaslight [1944]. In both depictions, no matter how astringent her characters, she struck me as somebody to love, to watch out for. That’s Dame Angela Lansbury’s star power: you see through the depictions and realize the movie star underneath. No wonder that for both roles mentioned, she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars, an honor she truly deserved as winner more than nominee [especially for that chilling 1962 thriller]. But when I finally saw [or more correctly: heard] her as Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast [1991], where she would sing the iconic titular song, I was finally bowled over. What range! I never really followed her turn as the beloved Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote — I wasn’t really into following TV shows back in the day — but twelve seasons as that indefatigable detective points to her significant cultural cache. There have been other roles, many of them beloved — I particularly love her blustery drunk romance novelist in Death on the Nile [1978] — and for all that, she will be missed.

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