WITH Dame Angela Lansbury leaving us this week it's hard not to feel that the screen has faded to black on the Golden Age of cinema.
The much loved actress, whose mother was the hugely acclaimed Belfast born actress Moyna Macgill, just seemed to embody that era of effortless glamour and Hollywood glitz although her career long outlived that time and encompassed a full seven decades of unforgettable work.
For millions of admirers the world over she will always be the lovable writer and detective Jessica Fletcher in the incredibly successful TV series Murder, She Wrote, which ran for a remarkable 12 series before coming to an end in 1996, but Lansbury's credits on stage and screen stretch back to the 1940s and include a vast array of truly memorable performances.
From her big screen debut as a maid in George Cukor's superb psychological thriller Gaslight in 1944 she went on to grace the likes of National Velvet and The Picture Of Dorian Grey with small but significant roles that saw her gather up Academy Award nominations and a Golden Globe for her efforts.
She picked up another, hugely deserved, nomination from the Academy for her performance in John Frankenheimer's edgy political thriller The Manchurian Candidate in 1962. Her turn as the devious and politically duplicitous Eleanor Iselin, who manipulates her war damaged son Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) into murderous betrayal to further the career of her Senator husband is stunning in its mix of coldness and motherly obsession.
As Cold War thrillers with ice cold hearts go, The Manchurian Candidate is untouchable and so is Lansbury's central performance. Her ability to play characters older than she actually was, something she would deliver throughout her early career, is reflected in the fact that she was only three years older than her on-screen son Harvey at the time of filming.
An era of stage stardom was ushered in with her leading role in the 1966 Broadway musical Mame and further success arrived with show stopping performances in productions as diverse as Sweeney Todd and The King And I.
Silver screen glory returned however in 1971 with Bedknobs And Broomsticks, a madcap Disney musical adventure that mashed together live action with weird and wonderful state of the art animation techniques.
After that small screen superstardom was delivered via her iconic lead role in Murder, She Wrote - a simple format detective show that was elevated to the status of cult classic by her charm and on-screen charisma - and she continued to grace the occasional family favourite on the big screen be it through voice work on the likes of Beauty and the Beast (1991) or unforgettable appearances in the likes of Nanny McPhee (2005) or Mary Poppins Returns (2018).
Her enduring place in film history was recognised with an honorary Academy Award in 2013, her Oscar statue inscribed with the words: "To Angela Lansbury, an icon who has created some of cinema's most memorable characters inspiring generations of actors."
She certainly crammed a lot of cinematic goodness into her 96 years on this planet. She would, incidentally, have turned 97 on Sunday and while it may feel like the curtain has fallen on a golden era it's pleasing to know that work that entranced and entertained so many down the decades will live on forever.
