Biography of Angela Lansbury

A substantial entertainer throughout six decades, Angela Lansbury hit superstardom as a senior citizen with her memorable portrayal of detective Jessica Fletcher in the long-running murder mystery drama Murder, She Wrote. The program held top viewer ratings in the U.S., the U.K., and Italy, among other countries.Angela Lansbury has been a successful and enduring force in almost every area of entertainment. From Broadway to the silver screen, the versatile English-born actress has won four Tonys and has been nominated for three Oscars and ten Emmy Awards. She has also hosted broadcasts of the both the Tony and Emmy Awards. Her fan base spans all ages as young audiences also recognize Ms. Lansbury for her perfect English diction and as the voice behind their favorite animated characters from the feature films The Last Unicorn, Beauty and the Beast, and Anastasia.Angela Lansbury got her start in the 1944 American film Gaslight as a teenager (which also starred Ingrid Bergman). A foreshadowing of what was to come, it was a murder mystery. She was nominated for an Oscar for it and consequently held a seven-year contract at MGM studios. Her second picture was also nominated for an Oscar (a Hollywood record). The young starlet made her musical debut in Hotel Paradiso on Broadway in 1957 at the Henry Miller Theater. Appearing in countless movies and musicals, she is best remembered for her film work in The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Long Hot Summer, and The Manchurian Candidate in the '40s, '50s, and '60s. In 1971, she released one of her first children's movies, Bedknobs and Broomsticks (also a musical). In the 1980s, she appeared in the screen version of The Pirates of Penzance. Her stage work includes revivals of the musicals Mame, Gypsy, and Sweeney Todd.Angela Lansbury was born to a well-known Irish actress and is granddaughter to the leader of the British Labor Party. She has been married to her second husband, writer/producer Peter Shaw, since 1949. Together they have one daughter, one son, and one stepson. She continues to appear in made-for-TV movies starring the character Jessica Fletcher, and in other roles for television, stage, and film. ~ Sandy Lawson

Biography of Jerry Orbach

Actor/singer Jerry Orbach spent 20 years working primarily as a leading man in Broadway musical comedies, a career that netted him a Tony Award and appearances on eight cast albums, before devoting himself more to non-singing character roles in films and a part on a long-running TV series. This second part of his career brought him such recognition that his earlier work was all but forgotten, or, more precisely, never known to the millions who tuned in to watch him on television each week. Orbach was born the son of a restaurant manager who had once worked in vaudeville in the New York City borough the Bronx. His family moved to Waukegan, IL, when he was 11. Having skipped grades, he graduated from high school at 16 and attended the University of Illinois for a year before transferring to Northwestern University, where he stayed two-and-a-half years before leaving to launch his career. Moving to New York City, he studied with such famed acting teachers as Herbert Berghof and Lee Strasberg. In 1955, he was hired as an understudy in the long-running Off-Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera. Over the next three years, he gradually worked his way up in the cast to the point that, in 1958, he began playing the lead role of Macheath (a/k/a Mack the Knife). The same year, he made his film debut with a small part in Cop Hater. He moved to another long-running Off-Broadway success originating the role of the narrator El Gallo in The Fantasticks (May 3, 1960), a part that allowed him to introduce the standard "Try to Remember." He made his recording debut on the original cast album, which reached the charts. He then made his Broadway debut in Carnival (April 13, 1961). The musical was a hit, running 719 performances, and the cast album reached #1. Both of the cast albums on which Orbach had appeared were released by MGM Records, which signed him as a recording artist and in 1963 released his only solo album, Off Broadway. (The album was reissued on CD on Decca Records in July 2000.) Orbach appeared in a series of revivals of notable musicals in the mid-1960s: an Off-Broadway production of The Cradle Will Rock (1964) and limited-run Broadway stagings of Guys and Dolls (April 26, 1965), Carousel (August 10, 1965), and Annie Get Your Gun (May 31, 1966). His performance in Guys and Dolls earned him his first Tony Award nomination as a supporting actor in a musical, but that show was the only one of the four not to produce a cast album. In 1967, he made his debut on Broadway as a non-singing actor in the comic play Scuba Duba. He originated his second starring role in a Broadway musical in Promises, Promises (December 1, 1968), singing the title song and the standard "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." The show ran 1,281 performances and produced a charting cast album; Orbach won the Tony Award for leading actor in a musical. Orbach had had roles in a couple of more films (Mad Dog Coll , John Goldfarb, Please Come Home ), but it was not until 1971 that he got a starring role on film in the crime comedy The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. His film career was not yet ready to take off, however, and he returned to the Broadway stage in the comic play 6 Rms, Riv Vu in 1972. He was given his third opportunity to originate a starring role in a Broadway musical with Chicago (June 1, 1975). The show ran 923 performances and produced a charting cast album, while Orbach earned his third Tony Award nomination for lead actor in a musical. He made his last appearance in a Broadway musical with 42nd Street (August 25, 1980), which ran 3,486 performances and had a cast album that reached the charts. Orbach had continued to take the occasional film role (A Fan's Notes , Foreplay , The Sentinel , Underground Aces ), but it was his appearance in Prince of the City (1981) that was a turning point in his career. Now in his mid-40s, he had matured into a gruff, sleepy-eyed tough guy type, perfect for playing cop characters, which he did here. (The persona did not prevent him from appearing in comedies as well, however.) After leaving 42nd Street, he began to appear frequently in films: Brewster's Millions (1985); The Imagemaker (1986); F/X (1986), Dirty Dancing (1987), I Love N.Y. (1987), Someone to Watch Over Me (1987), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989), Delusion (1990), California Casanova (1991), Dead Women in Lingerie (1991), Toy Soldiers (1991), Out for Justice (1991), Delirious (1991), The Cemetery Club (1992), Straight Talk (1992), Universal Soldier (1992), Mr. Saturday Night (1992). He also briefly returned to his roots in musical comedy by serving as one of the voices in the animated Disney movie musical Beauty and the Beast (1991), also appearing on the soundtrack album, as Lumiere, the French-accented candelabra who sings "Be Our Guest." (He continued his work with Disney in the straight-to-video animated films Aladdin and the King of Thieves and Belle's Magical World , the latter a sequel to Beauty and the Beast.) Orbach also worked regularly in television, making many TV movies and also guest-starring on several series. In the 1987-88 season, he starred in his own show, The Law and Harry McGraw, a spin-off of Murder, She Wrote, playing a private detective. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his appearance on The Golden Girls during the 1989-90 season. In 1992, he replaced Paul Sorvino in the long-running dramatic series Law and Order, remaining with the show for an extended period and eventually becoming best known for his part on the show. He also continued to make the occasional film appearance: A Gnome Named Gnorm (1994), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), Prince of Central Park (1999). ~ William Ruhlmann