Speaking to George Hook on Newstalk in 2008, the legendary actress Angela Lansbury spoke of her love for Ireland and explained that she sought Cork out as a sanctuary to shelter her family from the excesses of the drug culture in Hollywood.
“We really needed to get away from California and the drug life and all of that,” she told George. “We had our problems, there’s no question about it so coming to Ireland was like beginning all over again and it afforded us that time to get back to basics really. We bought a house down in Cork and we gardened and I learnt to cook, really cook for the first time and used all the produce from the garden and so on. The kids worked around and got jobs in Ballymaloe House and places. We started a whole new life.”
Speaking about Murder, She Wrote, the long-running TV series for which she has became a household name playing amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher, Angela admitted that while she loved playing the character: “I can’t put my nose out the door that people don’t recognise Jessica Fletcher so I have no real private life at all. The only place I’m really at ease is Los Angeles where people don’t watch Murder, She Wrote."
