Three-time Academy Award-nominated actress Angela Lansbury does not approve of NBC's reboot of "Murder, She Wrote," the television mystery series she starred in on CBS between 1984 and 1996.
Lansbury credits the role of the amateur detective as career-making. "I suddenly became a worldwide-known character as Jessica Fletcher and really built an enormous audience, which I have to this day," the 88-year-old told the AP days before she is to accept an honorary Academy Award. "That was the thing that really made me a star in the minds of everybody." Lansbury was nominated for 10 Golden Globe Awards and 12 Emmy Awards for her role as Fletcher.
She continued, calling the remake "a mistake":
"I think it's a mistake to call it `Murder, She Wrote,'" Lansbury said, "because `Murder, She Wrote' will always be about a Cabot Cove and this wonderful little group of people who told those lovely stories and enjoyed a piece of that place, and also enjoyed Jessica Fletcher, who is a rare and very individual kind of person ...
"So I'm sorry that they have to use the title `Murder, She Wrote,' even though they have access to it and it's their right."
Lansbury said she admires Spencer's work.
"I saw her in `The Help' and thought she was absolutely wonderful, a lovely actress," Lansbury said. "So I wish her well, but I wish it wasn't in `Murder, She Wrote.'"
Unlike Lansbury, who played a retired English teacher-turned-detective, Spencer will star as "a hospital administrator and amateur sleuth who self-publishes her first mystery novel," according to Deadline.
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