Who Are Angela Lansbury's Children?

Actress Angela Lansbury had her first film role as a devious maid in "Gaslight" (1944) and later became one of television's most beloved sleuths on the series "Murder, She Wrote" in the 1980s and 1990s (via IMDb). During her long career, she has enjoyed decades of success on television and on the stage as well as in films. Her personal life has been a bit more complicated, however. She married actor Richard Cromwell in 1945, but the union proved to be short-lived, according to Turner Classic Movies. Fifteen years her senior, Cromwell "was such an attractive man, so full of fun," Lansbury told the Daily Mail in 2014. But one day, Cromwell left Lansbury a note saying he leaving. She soon learned that he was gay, and the pair divorced. 

A few years later, Lansbury found lasting love after a mutual friend introduced her to Peter Shaw, an actor turned agent. The pair tied the knot in 1949, and they remained happily married until Shaw's death in 2003. The couple welcomed two children together, son Anthony and daughter Deidre. Shaw also had a son, David, from his first marriage, to Mercia Squires.

Shaw's son David was born in 1944, and was only a child when his father married Lansbury (via IMDb). The actress, unlike the kind of stepmothers shown in films and fairy tales, treated David with kindness. "She's a great lady," he told Closer Weekly. "She didn't have to have me. ... She always put family first."

In the 1980s, David became part of Lansbury's greatest television success. He worked on her long-running series "Murder, She Wrote," which was produced in its later seasons by Corymore Productions. The company created several "Murder, She Wrote" TV movies as well. His father had launched Corymore Productions in 1987, and David eventually became the company's president, per Closer Weekly.

The last "Murder, She Wrote" project, titled "The Celtic Riddle," proved to be a family affair. David ran the production company that made the TV movie while his half-brother Anthony served as its director. Angela's brother Bruce Lansbury helped write the script for it. Sadly, the project debuted after Peter Shaw's death in 2003, according to The New York Times.

Lansbury's son, Anthony Shaw, was born on January 7, 1952, in Los Angeles, California (via IMDb). Lansbury didn't take much time off from work after she had her son, and it was a decision she later regretted. She told the Daily Mail that "As soon as I had the babies I went on a diet and I was back in business. ... It was a big mistake." Lansbury and her husband worked hard as a team to care for their children — Anthony and his younger sister, Deidre — but they struggled when the kids were teenagers. They discovered that both Anthony and Deidre were using drugs.

Lansbury and her husband decided to get their children away from Hollywood by moving to Ireland. The change of scenery had a miraculous effect on Anthony, and there he was able to stop using drugs. Before long, Anthony followed in his mother's footsteps. He appeared in small roles in such films as "A Bridge Too Far" (1977) and "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977). By the late 1980s, he became more interested in working behind the scenes. He directed 68 episodes of his mother's hit show "Murder, She Wrote."  Now retired, Anthony has been married to Lee Speer Webster since 1980, and they have three children together.

Deidre Angela Shaw was born in 1953, according to Turner Classic Movies. She grew up in the beach community of Malibu, California, and there she ran into some challenges as a teenager. Deidre started out with marijuana and later moved on to heroin. But her drug use wasn't the only thing that worried her parents. Her mother told Daily Mail that her daughter got involved with a group led by Charles Manson. Deirdre's interest in this volatile character also caused a lot of concern.

Lansbury picked Ireland because that was where her mother, actress Moyna Macgill, was from, according to the Daily Mail. It took some time for Deidre to break away from her destructive habit, but eventually she, like her brother, moved her life in a positive direction. She married Enzo Battara, and she and her husband ran Enzo and Angela — The Italian Restaurant together in Los Angeles for many years. They closed in 2019, according to the restaurant's Facebook page.