"I'm immensely thankful to my Irish side. That's where I acquired my sense of humor and whimsy. As for the English half-my, that's a reserved side. But put me on stage, and the Irish come out. The mixture offers an excellent blend for acting. " -Angela Lansbury.
When Lansbury was nine, her father died from stomach cancer; she withdrew into creating roles as a coping strategy.
Facing financial trouble, her mother got engaged to a Scottish colonel, Leckie Forbes, and they moved into his home in Hampstead, with Lansbury obtaining an education at South Hampstead High School from 1934 to 1939. She nonetheless regarded herself as primarily self-educated, learning through literature, theatre, and movies. She became a self-professed "total movie junkie," attending the movies often and envisioning herself as specific characters.
She briefly studied music at the Ritman School of Dancing, and in 1940 began studying acting at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art in Kensington, West London, first appearing onstage as a lady-in-waiting in the school's production of Maxwell Anderson's Mary of Scotland.
That year, Angela's grandfather died, and with the advent of the Blitz, Macgill chose to accompany Angela, Bruce, and Edgar to the United States; Isolde stayed in Britain with her new husband, the actor Peter Ustinov. In mid-August, Macgill acquired a position monitoring 60 British children who were being evacuated to North America aboard the Duchess of Atholl, landing with them in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
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