Something delightful happened in the Fall of 1984. On Sunday night, September 30, at 8pm Eastern Standard Time, CBS premiered “Murder She Wrote”, a light-hearted drama series about Jessica Fletcher, a widowed mystery novelist who helped Cabot Cove law enforcement solve murder cases.
For twelve seasons, the show was comfort food for hungry viewers, and a ratings hit for the Tiffany Network. It spawned a series of TV movies, and after four decades, re-runs of the hour episodes are still on the air. It was a show that quickly achieved cult status and made a global super star out of a once shy theatre actress from England. That actress was my friend Dame Angela Lansbury.
I first met Angela when I produced and moderated “Women in Prime”, for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in March of 2007. It was a special evening I put together for the Academy to recognize outstanding TV actresses and female producers, with Angie as the honored guest. That night we had a wide-ranging conversation about opportunities for women in Hollywood, and about the barriers they face in grabbing those opportunities, such as gender and age discrimination, and stereotyping.
Speaking of which, “Murder She Wrote” producers originally offered the part of Jessica Fletcher to “All in the Family” star Jean Stapleton, but when she turned down the role, they reluctantly turned to Angela. That’s because they had stereotyped Angie as a theatre actress and thought the multiple Tony winner and Oscar nominee would not want to do television. They were wrong, thank the Lord.
During its first five seasons, “Murder She Wrote” was a perennial top ten favorite, and in its subsequent six seasons, it never fell out of the top fifteen. But CBS in all of its wisdom decided to tinker with the prime time line-up in season twelve and move “Murder She Wrote” from its Sunday night perch to Thursdays, where it fell to #58 in the ratings.
Realizing its blunder, the network returned “Murder She Wrote” to Sundays for what would be its last few episodes, including the series finale which was broadcast on May 19, 1996. Lansbury then starred in a series of four “Murder She Wrote” TV movies, after which Jessica Fletcher retired from network fare in 2003, but continues to solve murders in re-runs.
My friend Angela Lansbury passed away in October of 2022 at the age of 96, but I will always remember our time together at the TV Academy’s “Women in Prime” event.
What follows are highlights from our conversation.
JL: I think all of the early “Murder She Wrote” episodes were written by men, and you were outspoken about the fact that men didn’t always write for women the way they should. Did you ever get any women writers?
AL: We never had women writers. We never did. I wanted to have women writers. Thank goodness my brother was the story editor for a while because at least he knew what I was wanting to achieve in the way of helping Jessica to grow out of Cabot Cove, and put her foot in the larger pond, get out in the world and interact with more interesting people. He enabled me to do that, but we couldn’t go very far afield with that format.
JL: In 1987 you wrote “Positive Moves: My Personal Plan for Fitness and Well Being”, and I heard that the book was inspiring for a lot of women. Speaking of which, tell me about the feedback you’ve received from women who said you had a positive impact on their lives.
AL: I’ve had some wonderful feedback from the theatre roles I’ve played, and from the movie roles I’ve played, not so much with “The Manchurian Candidate”. It took me years to live down THAT role (laughs). I started “Murder She Wrote” when I was 59 years old, coming up to 60, and I got into television because I felt I hadn’t made any real money in the years I had been in the theatre and movies, and the time had come for annuity, you know? (laughs) You have to think about these things. And so, I got into television, thank God. But I was lucky to fall into an extraordinary role, a role model for women of my age. Women had never been represented in the way Jessica Fletcher approached her middle age, and for the first time those women really counted for something. But the interesting thing was, it wasn’t just women that I heard from. It was also men. Middle aged-men and older men adored Jessica, and to this day they still do. But the mail I got from women was just astronomical, and I still get it. It’s quite extraordinary. Women just decided they were going to be like Jessica Fletcher. They became writers, and they pulled themselves together. They lost weight thanks to the book, and they became absolutely fascinated by what was possible for women of our age to attain. So, the feedback was tremendous.
At the end of our panel discussion, I asked Academy Chairman Dick Askin to present Angela with a plaque that recognized her as a “Pioneer for Women in Television”.
When the deafening standing room-only applause died down, Angie thanked the Academy and then I took the opportunity to thank her for helping me get my wife Pam to the altar. I explained that following our first meeting, Pam was none too impressed with me, nevertheless I persevered. I learned that her all-time favorite TV show was “Murder She Wrote”, so I packed up my entire VHS collection of Jessica’s mysteries and dropped the tapes off to Pam at work. Soon afterward she agreed to go out with me, and eventually we tied the knot. Angela laughed and said, What a wonderful story? I can’t believe it.”
There’s no telling just how many lives Angela Lansbury touched, and how many people she helped along the way. One example occurred during the filming of a “Murder She Wrote” episode. As the story goes, guest star Van Johnson could see how the grueling production schedule was wearing on his buddy Angie. He told her she had made enough money and didn’t have to keep working and suggested that she should just walk away. Angela told him she would not think of quitting because hundreds of people depended on her for a living. That was Angela in a nutshell. It’s no mystery to know why she was so beloved. She was always thinking of others. Always a team player. Always giving us all she had to give. It’s a nice sentiment to remember on this 40th anniversary of “Murder She Wrote”.
For twelve seasons, the show was comfort food for hungry viewers, and a ratings hit for the Tiffany Network. It spawned a series of TV movies, and after four decades, re-runs of the hour episodes are still on the air. It was a show that quickly achieved cult status and made a global super star out of a once shy theatre actress from England. That actress was my friend Dame Angela Lansbury.
JL: I think all of the early “Murder She Wrote” episodes were written by men, and you were outspoken about the fact that men didn’t always write for women the way they should. Did you ever get any women writers?
