100 years of Mrs. Fletcher, Mrs. Potts and Mrs. Marple

BarcelonaAngela Lansbury endured with a stoic sense of humor the eternal confusion that accompanied her for forty years. They call it popularity syndrome, which consists of thousands and thousands of people around the world being convinced that you are not yourself but the character you have played and that has brought you, every day for months and years, into the living rooms of millions of people and families around the world. There are well-known cases of actors and actresses who have been insulted in the street because one of their most popular roles has been that of a con man, a mobster, or an abuser.

In our country, soap operas have been an interesting sociological breeding ground for this subject. When Miquel Cors played Antonio de Poble Nou, More than one, two, and three people reproached him, in the street, for his intolerable attitude towards Rosa, his fictional wife. The same thing happened to Joan Massotkleiner (the perfidious August de Family secrets) and David Bagès, who had a hard time getting rid of the viscous nuances of his Amadeu Cabanilles de Nice power. Evil people generate these kinds of visceral reactions, but kindness and goodness can also, at the opposite extreme, excite audiences' emotions. The great Alan Rickman was amazed at how young viewers around the world loved him. When they crossed paths with him, they would stare in disbelief and whisper, "Look, it's Severus." Harry Potter, of course, one of the most important and fruitful generators of emotion in recent decades. And Jessica Fletcher? Well, she's undoubtedly Angela Lansbury's most beloved character. The crime novelist spent more than ten years, between 1984 and 1996, colliding with all kinds of crimes wherever she went. Today, in the age of memes, many remember and make light of this unlikely life circumstance: the Fletcher curse. If you saw it in your town or near your house, you could start to tremble. It was almost a crime. At best, a robbery. But he often hit the jackpot of murder.

And how did she get the role? It was her husband, producer Peter Shaw, who came up with the idea for the series. Who was the ideal actress? And yes, it was her. A profile that didn't emerge from nowhere, obviously. Lansbury had just linked two characters that would be decisive in tipping the balance in her favor. Two roles sprung from the fertile imagination of Agatha Christie. The alcoholic and hilarious romance novelist Salomé Otterburne in Death on the Nile (1978) and, of course, Mrs. Marple The broken mirror (1980). The latter, along with Hercule Poirot, are Christie's two most memorable creations, with a long run on television and film. All together, good inspirations for Lansbury to shine at ease with his Mrs. Fletcher. Who doesn't remember the unmistakable theme song of the credits?

When the times of Murder, She Wrote were nearing their end, Lansbury accepted a role that some found unexpected. She voiced Mrs. Potts, the animated teapot from Beauty and the beast (1991), perhaps the most important film in the history of Disney. The one that changed the production company's erratic course in the 1980s and was a real hit around the world. Lansbury established herself as a first-class singer. But singing was no stranger to her, the unforgettable Miss Lovett from the premiere of Sweeney Todd in London. You can see the cut on Filmin, it's wonderful. Oh! And it wasn't Beauty and the beast his debut with Disney. How could we forget? The novel witch (1971), that brilliant blend of animation and real-life characters in which an amateur witch must take care of three children left helpless by the evacuation of their village during World War II. The actress, accustomed to secondary but essential roles in the films she starred in –The Manchurian Candidate, Gaslight, The Three Musketeers–, He had taken on a very demanding leading man. And he had succeeded with great success. However, acting wasn't the most demanding aspect of his life. His personal life was riddled with difficult-to-digest obstacles. His son struggled with drug addiction, and his daughter belonged to the Charles Manson cult, which became sadly and worldwide famous for being behind the murder of actress Sharon Tate in the summer of 1969.

Whenever asked, Angela Lansbury explained that she had lived a full life. Whether it was full or not was only known to her. It certainly was a long one. The actress died on October 11, 2022, just four days before her 97th birthday. Almost a centenarian, yes. In 2014, she received an honorary Oscar recognizing her entire career, but the woman who had been Miss Fletcher, Miss Potts, Mrs. Lovett, and Miss Marple said goodbye with the full conviction of having received the most important award of all: the infinite esteem of the millions of viewers to whom she had given a wonderful life.