LONDON (AP) — Angela Lansbury says she’s relieved that a planned remake of her classic whodunit series “Murder, She Wrote” has been canceled.
Lansbury had been critical of NBC’s idea of a reboot starring Octavia Spencer. The entertainment website Deadline.com reported this week that NBC was not going ahead with the show.
Lansbury said Thursday she thought the remake was a bad idea from the start.
“I couldn’t believe that they would even consider doing such a thing,” Lansbury told The Associated Press.
“I think it was an awful mistake and it was a terrible disservice” to Spencer, she said. “I have too much admiration for her to saddle her with the awful responsibility of having to bring that title into a different venue.”
Lansbury spent 12 years until 1996 playing small-town sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the series.
The 88-year-old actress is about to perform in London’s West End for the first time in almost 40 years, as the medium Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit.”
Lansbury won a Tony Award for the role on Broadway.
Last month the actress, who was born in London and moved to the United States in her teens, was made a dame — the female equivalent of a knight — by Queen Elizabeth II.
She said she was pleased to be performing at London’s Gielgud Theatre, where her mother, actress Moyna Macgill, made her stage debut in 1918.
“She was a lovely actress,” Lansbury said. “I get all my talent from her.”
