Ireland

‘Angela Lansbury loved Irish people and being able to be herself’: Remembering a Hollywood star who lit up a small Cork town

Locals around Ballycotton recall Murder, She Wrote star Angela Lansbury with enduring affection

Angela Lansbury with Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe House: the TV and film star had a long association with Ireland. Photograph: Provision

Barry Roche's face
Barry Roche Southern Correspondent in Ballycotton
Wed Oct 12 2022 - 20:56

It may be a long way from Hollywood Boulevard to the bumpy boreens around Ballycotton, but it was a transition that star of screen and stage Angela Lansbury made with ease.

The legendary actress became just another local in the east Cork town, where she was remembered yesterday with great fondness as they learned of her death in Los Angeles.

While Lansbury was one of the most enduring stars of Hollywood’s golden era, it was as Jessica Fletcher in TV hit Murder, She Wrote that she found fame with a younger audience.

The series ran from 1984 to 1996, by which time Lansbury was well settled in Ballywilliam, just west of Ballycotton. There, potter Stephen Pearce designed a home for her in 1990, and she and her late husband Peter Shaw came every year to spend weeks away from Hollywood.

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[ Actor Angela Lansbury dies aged 96 ]

She had previously moved to Conna in northeast Cork, and she later spoke of how the move to Ireland, the land of her maternal grandmother Moyna Macgill, was prompted by a desire to remove her children, Deirdre and Anthony from malign influences in California.

“When I first moved to Cork in 1970 with my husband Peter and our two children, Anthony and Deirdre, who were teenagers at the time, it was the sanctuary we needed after a fire destroyed our home in Malibu,” she said. “Besides, we needed to get away from California and the drug culture and all that.

“Both children had fallen in with an unsuitable crowd, and had become heavily involved with drugs. It started with cannabis, but moved on to heroin. It pains me to say this but, at one stage, Deirdre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson. Something had to be done, and Peter and I agreed we had to leave.”

She never had any airs and graces, or ever said who she was. She would be happy to chat away with you over a cup of tea

It was while the Lansburys were living at Knockmourne Glebe in Conna that they befriended George and Sally Phipps (daughter of author Molly Keane). Later, when the Phippses moved to Ballywilliam in Churchtown South, the Lansburys followed, settling near them again.

George’s son Jim recalled: “When my father moved to Churchtown South in the mid-1980s, Angie bought the field next to us and built a house there – she was great friends with Myrtle Allen and with Lucy Pearce, Stephen Pearce’s mother, and also with my father and my stepmother.”

[ Angela Lansbury was ‘Irish, English, Scottish’, a TV superstar and a Broadway demon ]

Phipps remembers having dinner with Lansbury as a child. “I was about ten years of age and they were over for dinner at our house. Hurd Hatfield, who starred in The Picture of Dorian Grey with Angie, was there, and I said: ‘Do you know what, I don’t know any really famous people’.

“My father asked me who would I class as famous, and I said: ‘Mick Jagger and James Hunt.’ Angie and Hurd just burst out laughing. She was such a down-to-earth lady, she used to drive herself around here and do her shopping in SuperValu in Midleton or Macs in Cloyne.

Phipps described Lansbury as “like everyone’s favourite granny”.

He felt that what attracted her to Ballycotton was the fact that she could be herself and go about her business, unbothered by locals who recognised her as a famous actress and were happy to chat to her but equally happy simply to salute her and leave her on her way.

“She never had any airs and graces, or ever said who she was,” he said. “She would be happy to chat away with you over a cup of tea. She loved her Barry’s Tea: she drank it until her dying days, she used to buy it on Amazon.”

Local sculptor, Matthew Thompon remembers Ms Lansbury as being very friendly with all the neighbours in Ballywilliam, while also very kind to his young children.

One of the reasons she liked to come to Ireland was that people didn’t make too much of a fuss about her – they recognised her but they gave her space

“She was just very normal,” he said. “She was very funny with a great sense of humour. One of the reasons she liked to come to Ireland was that people didn’t make too much of a fuss about her – they recognised her but they gave her space and didn’t crowd in on her.”

“She used to say when she came here that she loved to play house – cooking and taking care of herself without anyone running around after her. She always made sure she had a bit of turf in the house: she loved the smell of turf. She said it reminded her of Ireland and the west.”

Among those who got to know Lansbury well over the years was chef and food writer Darina Allen, who recalled how the actor used to come and stay at Ballymaloe before building her house at Ballywilliam.

“She was such an easy, lovely person,” Allen said. “She was witty and elegant and so gracious and not at all blingy. She kept away from the real celebrity scene in LA – she loved Ireland, and being able to fully relax. She loved to garden and to cook as well – she adored this ancient Aga we had.

“She loved Irish people and being able to be totally herself and wander around without being interfered with. She was so unassuming and gracious. Everybody felt comfortable around her, she was just lovely. How fortunate I was that our paths crossed in life.”