Biographie

The Oscar-winning song "Beauty and the Beast" almost wasn't sung by Lansbury. As it is a slow, romantic ballad, something she was not used to singing, she suggested another character should sing it. The filmmakers asked her to try it just once, and she nailed the song in that one take, which is the one heard in the film.

In an interview, Lansbury once stated that her nicest co-star was Hedy Lamarr, calling her sweet, loving, kind and considerate to everybody on the set, actor or crewman.

While filming Mort sur le Nil (1978), aboard ship, no one was allowed his or her own dressing room, so she shared a dressing room with Bette Davis and Maggie Smith.

She was awarded 2 Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures at 6623 Hollywood Boulevard; and for Television at 6259 Holywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

1997: She was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts by the National Endowment of the Arts in Washington, D.C.

Actors are not made, they are born.

I've had an incredible relationship with my husband, with my family. I know they've had problems of their own, but we have never wavered in our closeness as a family. I've had a hell of a life.

I just stopped playing bitches on wheels and peoples' mothers. I have only a few more years to kick up my heels!

[on working with the choir, the first time] I felt extremely nervous. I felt I was working with a group of people who are so wonderfully integrated among themselves to produce wonderful sound, music, singing

• their voices are so pure, so clear. I've listened so much to them in

the past to be singing down with them, I was very nervous.

I'm never left behind. I'm the bionic woman.