Admiring Angela

By John Crook

Questions:

1) Jessica Fletcher, the character played by Angela Lansbury in the Murder, She Wrote series and TV movies, had another job before becoming a writer and amateur sleuth. What was it?

2) Where was Jessica’s home of Cabot Cove located?

3) What was the name of the Cabot Cove sheriff played by Tom Bosley?

4) Jerry Herman, who wrote the music and lyrics to Mrs. Santa Claus especially for Lansbury, previously wrote two Broadway musicals for which Lansbury won Tony Awards. One was the flop Dear World, but the other was a huge smash. Can you name it?

5) Lansbury played what other very famous sleuth in the film The Mirror Crack’d?

6) Lansbury has played what three roles associated with Rosalind Russell?

7) Who was Moyna MacGill, who appeared with Lansbury in The Picture of Dorian Gray?

8) What character voice did Lansbury provide for Beauty and the Beast?

9) How much older was Lansbury than Laurence Harvey when she played his mother in The Manchurian Candidate?

10) In 1986, Jessica Fletcher appeared in an episode of what other hit CBS series?

Answers:

1) Substitute teacher
2) On the Maine coast
3) Amos Tupper
4) “Mame”
5) Miss Marple
6) Lansbury’s “Mame” was the musical version of Russell’s “Auntie Mame.” The 1999 TV movie “The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax” saw Lansbury in a role that Russell played in “Mrs. Pollifax -- Spy,” her last film. Both women also played Rose in “Gypsy,” with Russell in the movie version and Lansbury in a Broadway revival.
7) The Irish actress was Lansbury’s mother.
8) Mrs. Potts, the teapot
9) Three years older
10) “Magnum, P.I.”