On this day in 1925, stage, screen, and TV actress Angela Lansbury is born in London.

Lansbury followed in the footsteps of her mother, a successful stage and film actress, and began studying acting as a child. During the German attacks on London during World War II, she came to New York to continue studying. By age 18, she had signed with MGM. Her very first performance, in Gaslight, won her a nomination for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Lansbury did not blossom into a full-fledged movie star: She frequently played strong supporting roles, often as mothers or other matronly characters, even when she was still quite young. She was nominated for Oscars for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962). She also performed on Broadway, winning Tony Awards for her roles in Mame and Gypsy.

Her career didn’t slow down as she aged. In 1984, she landed her first TV series, Murder, She Wrote, in which she played a crime-solving mystery writer. The show consistently landed in the top 15 most-watched programs for a full decade. Lansbury also lent her voice to the character of the housekeeping teapot in Disney’s animated movie Beauty and the Beast (1992).

(With thanks to History.com)