TV, film and stage legend Angela Lansbury is to be honoured with the prestigious Volta Award at the Dublin International Film Festival.
Best known for her TV role as Jessica Fletcher in the longest running detective series in TV history, Murder She Wrote, Lansbury's career has spanned almost seventy-five years.
In that time the 90-year-old star has appeared in over 60 movies, as well as receiving an Honorary Oscar. She has also garnered five Tony Awards, six Golden Globes and an Olivier Award.
Angela Lansbury in 1955
Describing Lansbury as a legend Dublin International Film Director Gráinne Humphreys said: “It's a huge delight to welcome Dame Angela Lansbury to Dublin to discuss her life and career on stage and to accept our Festival Tribute Award, the Volta.
”A legend whose first films were the classics Gaslight and The Picture of Dorian Gray, from the chilling The Manchurian Candidate to Disney favourites Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Beauty and the Beast and Anastasia, Dame Lansbury has created an indelible impression on world cinema.”
Fans of Lansbury will get the chance to be in her presence at a very special public interview hosted by RTÉ's Aedín Gormley at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre on Sunday, February 21. She will also be presented with the Festival Tribute Award, the Volta, by President Michael D Higgins at the event.
Lansbury married Peter Shaw in 1949
Lansbury who is an Irish citizen moved from the US to Ireland in the 1970s and until recently, lived outside the town of Ballycotton in Co Cork. Speaking about her Irish connection she told The Irish Post: “I’m a bit Irish too you know, I have a house in Ireland and I go every year. I’m discovering my roots. My mother was born there, and my grandparents on that side of the family.
“I’m very very comfortable there; I find it an extraordinarily warm and informal place to live. I’m left alone there.
“On the street people say, ‘hi how are you,’ and I say ‘I’m grand how are you?’ It’s a very easy going place to be and I love Ireland for that reason.”
She added that she spent many happy years in Ireland with her late husband, Peter, and children Deirdre and Anthony, and explained that they built the house in Cork “on the order of an old-fashioned Irish farmhouse.”
Tickets for the public interview available through Ticketmaster on 0818 719 377. Ticket prices: €42.50, €36, €32, €20.
