Goodbye, Little Yellow Bird

I don't remember the date (Wikipedia says it was September 30, 1984), but I certainly remember the occasion. It was a Sunday evening -- Murder, She Wrote always aired on Sunday evenings (except for its twelfth, and final, season). Mom, dad and I were gathered around the television, ready to watch a brand new mystery show. The first episode was two hours long, and titled The Murder of Sherlock Holmes. It had a bevy of guest stars, many of whom I recognized. And, of course, there was the star of the show, Angela Lansbury.

Murder, She Wrote would become appointment television in my household over the next few years. We always watched it together. When my parents divorced in late-summer of 1988, it was just me who carried on watching the show. Mom was busy going back to school, working part-time, and starting a new relationship. I tried calling dad during the commercial breaks, partly as a way of discussing that week's episode, but also to try and bond over something we both enjoyed, but he never seemed all that interested in our conversations, so I stopped calling.

Then there was the 1979 remake of the Hitchcock classic, The Lady Vanishes. Angela Lansbury featured as the pivotal character of Miss Froy. I quite liked her in the role. Having re-watched the film years later, I can say that it's fine, but doesn't hold a candle to the original. A movie which does still hold up, and one that I've watched countless times over the years, is the 1971 Disney classic, Bedknobs and Broomsticks. It often exists in the shadow of the earlier Disney film, Mary Poppins, but shares some of its DNA - cartoon sequences mixed with live action people, the awesome David Tomlinson, and a wonderful set of songs by the Sherman Brothers.

Who can forget Lansbury in her 1944 screen debut as the unscrupulous maid in Gaslight? Or as Mrs. Potts, the teapot, in Disney's 1991 animated classic, Beauty and the Beast? Or as the scheming mother in 1962's The Manchurian Candidate? Lansbury also starred as a princess in the colorful Danny Kaye film, The Court Jester, Elvis' mom in Blue Hawaii (even though she was only ten years older than him), a goofy murder victim in 1978's Death on the Nile and, most recently, as the Balloon Lady in 2018's Mary Poppins Returns. In 2014, aged 89, she trod the boards in a revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit.

Lansbury was famously kind and loyal. When her friend Madlyn Rhue developed multiple sclerosis, her acting roles became fewer and far between. She was at risk of losing her health insurance due to lack of work, so Angela created a recurring role for Rhue on Murder, She Wrote (the town librarian in Cabot Cove). Then, there were the numerous Hollywood stars whom Lansbury had worked with and developed friendships with over the years. Many of them guest-starred on her long-running detective program, including Hurd Hatfield, her co-star some four decades earlier in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Angela Lansbury died this morning, aged 96. I am more than a little embarrassed to say that I've wept at her passing. 96-years-old is some good innings. She lived a long, full life. And, I didn't even know her. Why the sadness? I dunno. Maybe I'm remembering all the joy and entertainment she brought to my life over the years, in many of the aforementioned TV shows and movies. And, maybe I'm remembering those Sunday nights in the 1980s, when I was a kid, and my family was together and, despite our problems, we gathered 'round the television, in our small, wood-paneled living room, and watched a delightful woman solve some murders.