Who were Angela Lansbury's husbands? Inside actress' life with gay partner and 'the perfect relationship'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Dame Angela Lansbury died on Tuesday morning, October 11, as confirmed by her family in an official statement. The highly decorated actress was known for several critically acclaimed movies but was particularly famous for the role of Jessica Fletcher in 'Murder, She Wrote'. Lansbury enjoyed a strong career that spanned over eight decades. The Oscar-nominated actress and Broadway talent was married twice.
The Irish-British and American actress, famous for movies like 'Beauty and the Beast', 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray', 'Gaslight', and more, was married twice. At the tender age of 19, Angela Lansbury’s first husband was Richard Cromwell who himself was a hit actor famous for flicks like 'Riot Squad', 'Men of the Hour', and more. The marriage, however, lasted less than a year as they got married in 1945 and divorced in 1946. Lansbury revealed later on that Cromwell was gay and she was not aware of it. Three years later, the 96-year-old late actress found herself head over heels for Peter Shaw as they married in 1949 and remained married until 2003 before Shaw died of heart failure. Shaw later became a famous Hollywood agent.
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Who were Angela Lansbury's husbands?
Lansbury reflected on her year-long marriage with Cromwell, shedding light on the decision she made when she was 19 and confirmed that her first husband was gay. She told RadioTimes.com, "I understand younger women marrying older men. It’s a father — she didn’t have the father, and now she’s looking for it. I had no idea that I was marrying a gay man. I found him such an attractive individual, a very glamorous person – he knew everybody, he was a friend of Joan Crawford’s, these people who I was fascinated by as a young actress. And he wanted to marry, he was fascinated with me, but only because of what he had seen on the screen, really." Lansbury and Cromwell remained friends up until his death in 1960 due to liver cancer.
Everything went right for Lansbury in her second marriage to Peter Shaw. He moved to the United States after serving in the British army and met Lansbury in 1946. Three years later, the duo tied the knot and remained married until Shaw died of heart failure in 2003. Talking about her "perfect relationship" to DailyMail in 2014, Lansbury said, "We had the perfect relationship. Not many people can say that. He was everything to me: We were partners at work as well as husband and wife and lovers. I don’t know how we had such a long marriage, but the simple fact was that we were devoted to one another. We made all decisions jointly and we helped and supported each other constantly. My career was important to me but our children, Anthony and Deidre, always came first.'" The couple shared three children together: Shaw's son David, as well as their children Anthony, born in 1952, and Deirdre, born in 1953.
