The passing of legendary actress Angela Lansbury at age ninety-six has left millions of hearts broken. However, it has opened up the opportunity for the world to share stories of the star…
One of the most fascinating stories of Lansbury’s life is when she relocated her entire family to Ireland.
This was in response to her daughter meeting and falling for Charles Manson.
The star had lived in Los Angeles for the vast majority of her life.
Read on for the full story of just what exactly went down with Charles Manson…
The beloved Murder, She Wrote actress was born in London in 1925.
She was the daughter of British politician Edgar Lansbury and Irish actress Moyna Macgill.
In 1940, Lansbury moved to New York in order to escape the Blitz.
Here, she began to study acting, before making the move over to Hollywood just 2 years later.
From there, the star’s rise was inevitable.
In her first few years of acting, the star was nominated for 2 Academy Awards.
However, her big break came in 1962 with her role in The Manchurian Candidate.
This earned Lansbury another Oscar nomination, and is widely regarded as one of her best performances.
From the mid-sixties, the star began to move towards musical theater productions.
This included stage roles, such as her leading role in Mame, which won the star her first Tony award.
Her stage roles also included Gypsy, The King and I, and Sweeney Todd.
And who could forget her legendary performance in the 1971 Disney smash Bedknobs and Broomsticks?
However, it is around this point in Lansbury’s career that her life saw a big change…
The year 1970 saw some big challenges for the Beauty and the Beast star’s family.
Lansbury was forced to upend her entire family from Los Angeles to a remote village called Conna in County Cork, Ireland.
The actress said she was drawn to the emerald isle because it was the birthplace of her mother.
In 2014, she explained the situation to the Daily Mail: “It started with cannabis but moved on to heroin.”
Her children had been caught up in the counterculture movement, with her son Anthony becoming a drug addict
The star’s daughter Deidre even became involved with the so-called Manson family.
Lansbury said: “There were factions up in the hills above Malibu that were dedicated to deadly pursuits. It pains me to say it but, at one stage, Deidre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson.”
One of the cult’s most notorious crimes was the murder of actress Sharon Tate and 4 others in 1969.
The high-profile case involved Manson and 3 others and took the nation by shock.
Lansbury explained that her daughter was “one of many youngsters who knew him.”
However, upon learning of Deidre’s involvement in the killer cult, Lansbury told her husband Peter Shaw that they had to leave.
Lansbury explained that, as well as having family connections in Ireland, “it was also somewhere my children wouldn’t be exposed to any more bad influences.”
The star didn’t work for a year, but instead said that she learned how to cook by using Elizabeth David’s books.
“It was a wonderful time in my life,” Lansbury said.
She praised the “simplicity of life in Ireland” with saving her children, claiming that she would have “lost one or both” if they hadn’t made the move.
The star explained: “Peter and I had no idea what had been going on. But then we had no experience of drugs.
“We didn’t know the significance of finding a pipe in a drawer. Why would we?
“And when we did, we didn’t know how to help them.
“Nor were there any experts back then who could offer advice to the parents of kids from good families who were using, and sometimes overdosing on, drugs. It was like an epidemic.”
She told Ireland’s Own that the move offered “the sanctuary we needed” after the fire and the bad influences in California.
Ever since, the star loved Ireland, saying: “We found that we missed Cork and vowed to go back.
“We did that in 1992 when we bought a piece of land and built a new house and we’ve had that place ever since.”
Lansbury was incredibly proud of her Irish citizenship.
Thankfully, the move did make the world of difference to the Anastasia actress’ family.
Her son Anthony went on to become a director, and was even responsible for over sixty episodes of Murder, She Wrote.
Lansbury’s daughter Deidre went on to open a restaurant with her husband in Los Angeles.
Reflecting on the matter, the star said: “We were so very, very lucky we spotted what was happening just in time.”
What do you think about Lansbury’s actions to save her family?