Angela and Loretta - October 2022

My parents were among the more than 20 million loyal viewers of “Murder She Wrote,” a tv series starring Angela Lansbury which ran for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996. They loved that show, though at the time, I hadn’t stopped to consider all that it represented, most particularly a lead who was old, like them, not young and beautiful and sexy. The role was originally created for Jean Stapleton but she had recently lost her husband and was too lost in grief to be able to take on the project. Lansbury won Best Dramatic Actress awards every year that the series ran. Angela Lansbury was 96 when she died, just short of her 97th birthday. She was born and died in October.

I think one of the most interesting things I learned about Angela Lansbury, when I read about her life after her death was announced, was that her children had become involved in drugs during their family life in California, and her daughter was involved in a group of young drug users forming around Charles Manson! When Angela and her husband realized what was happening, they pulled up stakes and moved their family to Ireland, to Angela Lansbury’s birthplace. In that quiet, remote location, Lansbury took a year off from everything except taking care of her family and her children were able to recover from their drug addictions and get their lives back on track. Both are fine, healthy, successful people now. in late middle age, the age Angela Lansbury was when she began her long successful run with “Murder She Wrote.” Another of Angela Lansbury’s achievements was her 53 year marriage to husband Peter Shaw who predeceased her.

Loretta Lynn has also died in October, also in her 90’s. It has been written about her that she achieved a stardom that no female singer before her had. She’d had 16 number one hits, 52 top ten hits, and 76 records on the charts. Something that always stood out to me about Loretta Lynn was her pride in her working class roots. As anyone interested in history can tell you, the most invisible stories are those about the lives of the working poor, and especially women. Loretta Lynn put the spotlight on those experiences and everyone listened. There is a wonderful Ken Burns Documentary on Country Music and a good portrait of Loretta Lynn in it. If you are every looking for some really fun history to watch on tv, watch that documentary. You can find it on www.pbs.org. This year, I donated $60 and received the abs “passport” and I can tell you that it is a bottomless treasure bo of great entertainment for the cold evenings of fall and winter.

As the year folds into itself and we prepare for our own versions of winter hibernation, we say goodbye to yet two more great figures of the entertainment world and the twentieth century.

I just ordered Loretta' Lynn's autobiography "Coal Miner's Daughter" which I will read to honor her memory.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann (as always, if you wish to contact me, use my e-mail not 'comments' which is filled with spam wrightj45@yahoo.com)