Political fiction employs narrative to comment on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction , such as political novels , often "directly criticize an existing society or present an alternative, even fantastic, reality". The political novel overlaps with the social novel , proletarian novel , and social science fiction .
161-645: Richard Thomas Condon (March 18, 1915 – April 9, 1996) was an American political novelist . Though his works were satire, they were generally transformed into thrillers or semi-thrillers in other media, such as cinema. All 26 books were written in distinctive Condon style, which combined a fast pace, outrage, and frequent humor while focusing almost obsessively on monetary greed and political corruption. Condon himself once said: "Every book I've ever written has been about abuse of power. I feel very strongly about that. I'd like people to know how deeply their politicians wrong them." Condon's books were occasionally bestsellers, and
322-551: A Lifetime Achievement Award ), six Golden Globe Awards , a Laurence Olivier Award , and the Academy Honorary Award , in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards , eighteen Primetime Emmy Awards , and a Grammy Award . Angela Brigid Lansbury was born to an upper-middle-class family on October 16, 1925. Although her birthplace has often been given as Poplar, east London , she rejected this, stating that while she had ancestral connections to Poplar, she
483-493: A Mame revival at Broadway's Gershwin Theatre . Although Lansbury was praised, the revival was a commercial failure, with Lansbury noting: "I realised that it's not a show of today. It's a period piece ." A small number of people have seen me on the stage. [Television] is a chance for me to play to a vast US public, and I think that's a chance you don't pass up... I'm interested in reaching everybody. I don't want to reach just
644-598: A totalitarian or authoritarian state. The poet Jan Kochanowski 's play The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys (1578), the first tragedy written in the Polish language , recounts an incident leading up to the Trojan War . Its theme of the responsibilities of statesmanship resonates to the present day. The book Utopia (1516), written by Sir Thomas More , talk about a story of a different world compared to
805-509: A French burlesque directed by Peter Glenville . The play only ran for 15 weeks, although she earned good reviews for her role as Marcel Cat. She later stated that had she not appeared in the play, her "whole career would have fizzled out." Into the 1960s, she followed this with an appearance in a Broadway performance of A Taste of Honey at the Lyceum Theatre , directed by Tony Richardson and George Devine . Lansbury played Helen,
966-490: A French adventuress in Mutiny (1952). Turning to radio, in 1948, Lansbury appeared in an audio adaptation of Somerset Maugham 's Of Human Bondage for NBC University Theatre and the following year, she starred in their adaptation of Jane Austen 's Pride and Prejudice . Moving into television, she appeared in a 1950 episode of Robert Montgomery Presents adapted from A.J. Cronin 's The Citadel . Unhappy with
1127-623: A Play for her role. In March 2009, she returned to Broadway for a revival of Blithe Spirit at the Shubert Theatre , where she took on the role of Madame Arcati. This appearance earned her the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play ; this was her fifth Tony Award, tying her with the previous record holder for the number of Tony Awards, Julie Harris . From December 2009 to June 2010, Lansbury then starred as Madame Armfeldt in
1288-419: A Senegalese immigrant living France since the 1990s, writes political fiction about her experiences on France's unwelcoming borders that are dominated by white Christian culture. The work of Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé also tackles colonialism and oppression; her best known titles are Ségou (1984) and Ségou II (1985). Set in historical Segou (now part of Mali), the novels examine the violent legacies of
1449-493: A Sondheim musical directed by Harold Prince . Opening at the Uris Theatre, she starred alongside Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd , the murderous barber in 19th-century London. After being offered the role, she jumped on the opportunity due to Sondheim's involvement, commenting that she loved "the extraordinary wit and intelligence of his lyrics." She remained in the role for 14 months before being replaced by Dorothy Loudon ;
1610-640: A book with the same title co-written with Mimi Avins, which she dedicated to her mother. As a result of her work, she was awarded a CBE by the British government, given to her in a ceremony by Charles, Prince of Wales , at the British consulate in Los Angeles. While living for most of the year in California, Lansbury spent the Christmas period and the summer at Corymore House, a farmhouse overlooking
1771-576: A bungalow in Laurel Canyon , both Lansbury and her mother obtained Christmas jobs at the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles; Macgill was sacked for incompetence, leaving the family to subsist on Lansbury's wages of $ 28 a week. Befriending a group of gay men, Lansbury became privy to the city's underground gay scene. With her mother, she attended lectures by the spiritual guru Jiddu Krishnamurti - at one of these, meeting
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#17327902685991932-515: A century before he completed Pharaoh . This is a political awareness that Prus shared with his 10-years-junior novelist compatriot, Joseph Conrad , who was an admirer of Prus' writings. Pharaoh has been translated into 23 languages and adapted as a 1966 Polish feature film . It is also known to have been Joseph Stalin's favourite book. Joseph Conrad wrote several novels with political themes: Nostromo (1904) , The Secret Agent (1907), and Under Western Eyes (1911). Nostromo (1904)
2093-574: A company that she co-owned with her husband Peter Shaw , Lansbury assumed ownership of the series and was its executive producer during its final four seasons. She also moved into voice work, contributing to animated films like Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Anastasia (1997). In the 21st century, she toured in several theatrical productions and appeared in family films such as Nanny McPhee (2005) and Mary Poppins Returns (2018). Among her numerous accolades were six Tony Awards (including
2254-478: A coping mechanism. Facing financial difficulty, her mother entered a relationship with a Scottish colonel, Leckie Forbes, and moved into his house in Hampstead . Lansbury then received an education at South Hampstead High School from 1934 until 1939, where she was a contemporary of Glynis Johns . She nevertheless considered herself largely self-educated, learning from books, theatre and cinema. Lansbury became
2415-405: A dedication to Youngstein and was made into a successful film. In Mile High , his eighth novel, one primarily about how a single spectacularly ruthless gangster named Eddie West imposes Prohibition upon an unwary populace, Condon sums up the theme of all his books in a single angry cri de coeur : Prohibition fused the amateurism and catch-as-catch-can national tendencies of the early days of
2576-513: A different protagonist: Roy Sherwood, a member of the state legislature; Neil Christiansen, the state's junior senator; and Jay McGown, the governor's speech-writer. The governor himself, Arthur Fenstemaker, a master politician (said to have been based on Brammer's mentor Lyndon Johnson ) serves as the dominant figure throughout. The book also includes characters based on Brammer, his wife Nadine, Johnson's wife Ladybird , and his brother Sam Houston Johnson . The book has been widely acclaimed one of
2737-559: A dozen books. In 1998, a Californian software engineer noticed several paragraphs in The Manchurian Candidate that appeared nearly identical to portions of the celebrated 1934 novel I, Claudius by the English writer Robert Graves . She wrote about the apparent plagiarism on her website, but her discovery went unnoticed by most of the world until Adair Lara, a longtime San Francisco Chronicle staff writer, wrote
2898-590: A farce set in Baltimore in which her son Anthony also starred. It debuted at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre before moving to Broadway's Martin Beck Theatre . It was critically panned and faced protests from California's Japanese-American community for including anti-Japanese slurs. That year, Lansbury was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame , and the following year appeared in
3059-548: A farm in Berrick Salome , Oxfordshire. I'm eternally grateful for the Irish side of me. That's where I got my sense of comedy and whimsy. As for the English half–that's my reserved side ... But put me onstage, and the Irish comes out. The combination makes a good mix for acting. – Angela Lansbury. When Lansbury was nine, her father died from stomach cancer ; she retreated into playing characters as
3220-550: A farmhouse built in the 1820s which was located near Conna in rural County Cork , and, after Anthony quit using cocaine and heroin, took him there to recover from his drug addiction. He subsequently enrolled in the Webber-Douglas School, his mother's alma mater, and became a professional actor, before moving into television directing. Lansbury and her husband did not return to California, instead dividing their time between Cork and New York City, where they lived in
3381-811: A film based on Gilbert and Sullivan 's comic opera of the same name , and while filming it in London sang on a recording of The Beggar's Opera . This was followed by an appearance as the grandmother in Gothic fantasy film The Company of Wolves (1984). Lansbury had also begun work for television, appearing in a 1982 television film with Bette Davis titled Little Gloria... Happy at Last . She followed this with an appearance in CBS 's The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (1983), later describing it as "the most unsophisticated thing you can imagine." A BBC television film followed, A Talent for Murder (1984), in which she played
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#17327902685993542-445: A fine example of the "lunacy of his metaphors": "Mason took in enough cannabis smoke to allow a Lipan Apache manipulating a blanket over it to transmit the complete works of Tennyson." The Manchurian Candidate offers: The effects of the narcotics, techniques, and suggestions... achieved a result that approximated the impact an entire twenty-five-cent jar of F. W. Woolworth vanishing cream might have on vanishing an aircraft carrier of
3703-567: A flat opposite the Lincoln Center . [In Ireland, our gardener] had no idea who I was. Nobody there did. I was just Mrs. Shaw, which suited me down to the ground. I had absolute anonymity in those days, which was wonderful. – Angela Lansbury. In 1972, Lansbury returned to London's West End to perform in the Royal Shakespeare Company 's theatrical production of Edward Albee 's All Over at
3864-724: A honeymoon in France. Returning to the US, they settled into Lansbury's home in Rustic Canyon, Malibu . In 1951, the couple both became naturalized US citizens , albeit retaining their British citizenship via dual nationality . Following the success of Gaslight and The Picture of Dorian Gray , MGM cast Lansbury in 11 further films until her contract with the company ended in 1952. Keeping her among their B-list stars, MGM used her less than their similar-aged actresses; Lansbury biographers Rob Edelman and Audrey E. Kupferberg believed that
4025-402: A lengthy article about the accusation in 2003. Reprinting the paragraphs in question, she also solicited the opinion of a British forensic linguist , who concluded that Condon had unquestionably plagiarized at least two paragraphs of Graves's work. By this time, however, more than seven years had passed since Condon's death, and Lara's article also failed to generate any literary interest outside
4186-456: A new international crisis that allows [John] McCain to again flex his Manchurian Candidate military cred. Let the neocons identify a new battleground for igniting World War III... and McCain gets with the program as if Angela Lansbury has just dealt him the Queen of Hearts . Condon's works are difficult to categorize precisely: A 1971 Time magazine review declared that, "Condon was never
4347-756: A number of his books were made into films; he is primarily remembered for his 1959 The Manchurian Candidate and, many years later, a series of four novels about a family of New York gangsters named Prizzi. Condon's writing was known for its complex plotting, fascination with trivia, and loathing for those in power; at least two of his books featured thinly disguised versions of Richard Nixon . His characters tend to be driven by obsession, usually sexual or political, and family loyalty. His plots often have elements of classical tragedy , with protagonists whose pride leads them to destroy what they love. Some of his books, most notably Mile High (1969), are perhaps best described as secret history. And Then We Moved to Rossenarra
4508-403: A part of the English language. Frank Rich , for example, in his column in the "Sunday Opinion" of The New York Times of August 17, 2008, writes about Barack Obama with a reference to both a well-known actress and a well-known plot element (which he gets wrong) in the first movie version of Condon's 1959 book: [Obama's] been done in by that ad with Britney [Spears] and Paris [Hilton] and
4669-400: A political dimension, is the social novel – also known as the "social-problem" or "social-protest" novel – a "work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel". More specific examples of social problems that are addressed in such works include poverty, conditions in factories and mines,
4830-563: A political point. Steinbeck had visited the camps well before publication of the novel and argued that their inhumane nature destroyed the settlers' spirit. The Quiet American (1955) by English novelist Graham Greene questions the foundations of growing American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s. The novel has received much attention due to its prediction of the outcome of the Vietnam War and subsequent American foreign policy since
4991-537: A response to the growing cultural schism that he saw between Russia 's liberals of the 1830s and 1840s, and the growing Russian nihilist movement among their sons. Both the nihilists and the 1830s liberals sought Western-based social change in Russia. Additionally, these two modes of thought were contrasted with the Slavophiles , who believed that Russia's path lay in its traditional spirituality . Turgenev's novel
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5152-566: A result, Anthony had become addicted to cocaine and heroin . Lansbury followed the success of Mame with a performance as Countess Aurelia, the 75-year-old Parisian eccentric in Dear World , a musical adaptation of Jean Giraudoux 's The Madwoman of Chaillot . The show opened at Broadway's Mark Hellinger Theatre in February 1969, but Lansbury found it a "pretty depressing" experience. Reviews of her performance were positive, and she
5313-584: A satirist: he was a riot in a satire factory. He raged at Western civilization and every last one of its works. He decorticated the Third Reich , cheese fanciers, gossip columnists and the Hollywood star system with equal and total frenzy." The headline of his obituary in The New York Times called him a "political novelist", but went on to say that, "Novelist is too limited a word to encompass
5474-647: A self-professed "complete movie maniac", visiting the cinema regularly. Keen on playing the piano, 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, Lansbury's grandfather died, and with
5635-558: A series of venal bitches." The company was suffering from the post-1948 slump in cinema sales, as a result slashing film budgets and cutting their number of staff. In 1946, Lansbury played her first American character as Em, a honky-tonk saloon singer in the Oscar-winning Wild West musical The Harvey Girls ; her singing was dubbed by Virginia Reese. She appeared in The Hoodlum Saint (1946), Till
5796-692: A short break. Her first cinematic role in seven years was as novelist Salome Otterbourne in a 1978 adaptation of Agatha Christie 's Death on the Nile , filmed in both London and Egypt. In the film, Lansbury starred alongside Ustinov and Bette Davis , who became a close friend. The role earned Lansbury the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress of 1978. In March 1979, Lansbury appeared as Nellie Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street ,
5957-472: A so-called Keener's Manual ; these epigraphs foreshadowed the theme of the book or, in several instances, gave the book its title. The Keener's Manual , however, was a fictional invention by Condon and does not actually exist. A "keen" is a "lamentation for the dead uttered in a loud wailing voice or sometimes in a wordless cry" and a "keener" is a professional mourner, usually a woman in Ireland, who "utters
6118-469: A spin-off was produced, The Law & Harry McGraw , although it proved short-lived. As Murder, She Wrote went on, Lansbury assumed a larger role behind the scenes. In 1989, her own company, Corymore Productions , began co-producing the show with Universal. Lansbury began to tire of the series, and in particular the long working hours, stating that the 1990–1991 season would be its last. She changed her mind after being appointed executive producer for
6279-491: A standstill. Their marriage was troubled; Cromwell was gay, and had married Lansbury in the unsuccessful hope that it would turn him heterosexual . Lansbury filed for divorce within a year, it being granted on September 11, 1946, but they remained friends until his death. In December 1946, she was introduced to fellow English expatriate Peter Pullen Shaw at a party held by former co-star Hurd Hatfield in Ojai Valley . Shaw
6440-598: A stranger in a strange land." In 1959, the family moved to Malibu, settling into a house that had been designed by Aaron Green on the Pacific Coast Highway ; there, she and Peter escaped the Hollywood scene, and sent their children to public school . Returning to cinema as a freelance actress, Lansbury found herself typecast as an older, maternal figure, appearing in this capacity in most of her films from this period. She later stated that "Hollywood made me old before my time", noting that in her twenties she
6601-524: A very taking coolth ." The role resulted in Lansbury receiving her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical . Lansbury's later biographer Margaret Bonanno claimed that Mame made Lansbury a "superstar", with the actress herself commenting on her success: "Everyone loves you, everyone loves the success, and enjoys it as much as you do. And it lasts as long as you are on that stage and as long as you keep coming out of that stage door." Off
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6762-714: A well-reviewed appearance in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (1959) – for which she had filmed in the Australian Outback – and a minor role in A Breath of Scandal (1960), Lansbury appeared in 1961's Blue Hawaii as the mother of a character played by Elvis Presley , just ten years her junior. Although believing that the film was of poor quality, she commented that she agreed to appear in it because she "was desperate". Her role as Mavis in The Dark at
6923-403: A wheelchair user mystery writer; although describing it as "a rush job", she agreed to do it in order to work with co-star Laurence Olivier. Two further miniseries featuring Lansbury appeared in 1984: Lace and The First Olympics: Athens 1896 . In 1983, Lansbury was offered two main television roles, one in a sitcom and the other in a detective drama series, Murder, She Wrote . As she
7084-622: A working class music hall singer who falls in love with the protagonist, Dorian Gray ( Hurd Hatfield ). Although the film was not a financial success, Lansbury's performance once more drew praise, earning her a Golden Globe Award , and she was again nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards, losing to Anne Revere , her co-star in National Velvet . On September 27, 1945, Lansbury married Richard Cromwell , an artist and decorator whose acting career had come to
7245-524: A writer of "how-to books" in general, this book in particular, and Condon's habit of using lists: "A lot of it is done with numbers arbitrarily chosen to falsely simulate precision." All of Condon's books have, to an unknown degree, the names of real people in them as characters, generally very minor or peripheral. The most common, which appears in all of his books, is some variation of Franklin M. Heller. Among them are F.M. Heller, Frank Heller, Franz Heller, Marxie Heller, and F. Marx Heller. The real-life Heller
7406-582: A zoo assistant, two choir girls, a Métro attendant from the terminal at the Bois de Vincennes, four beauty-contest winners, a chambermaid; the mothers of children, the mothers of men, the grandmothers of children and the grandmothers of men; and the general less specialized, female public-at-large which had come from eleven European countries, women perhaps whom he had only pinched or kissed absent-mindedly while passing through his busy life. They attended twenty-eight hundred and seventy strong, plus eleven male friends of
7567-413: Is Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949), many of whose terms and concepts, such as Big Brother , doublethink , thoughtcrime , Newspeak , Room 101 , telescreen , 2 + 2 = 5 , and memory hole , have entered into common use. Nineteen Eighty-Four popularised the adjective " Orwellian ", which describes official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of recorded history by
7728-628: Is a humorous autobiographical recounting of various places in the world where he had lived and his family's 1970s move to Rossenarra, County Kilkenny , Ireland. Born in New York City , Condon attended DeWitt Clinton High School . After service in the United States Merchant Marine , Condon achieved moderate success as a Hollywood publicist, ad writer and Hollywood agent. Condon turned to writing in 1957. Employed by United Artists as an ad writer, he complained that he
7889-580: Is also notable for the persecution he underwent. Aristophanes' plays turned upon images of filth and disease. His bawdy style was adopted by Greek dramatist-comedian Menander , whose early play, Drunkenness , contains an attack on the politician, Callimedon . Jonathan Swift 's A Modest Proposal (1729) is an 18th-century Juvenalian satirical essay in which he suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. The satirical hyperbole mocks heartless attitudes towards
8050-531: Is certainly Art Buchwald , the celebrated newspaper columnist and humorist, who, at the time of the book's publication, was still working for The International Herald-Tribune , which was published in Paris, where Condon had also lived during the 1950s. The identity of Nolan, however, remains a mystery. For many years a Hollywood publicity man for Walt Disney and other studios, Condon took up writing relatively late in life and his first novel, The Oldest Confession ,
8211-408: Is created especially by communist , socialist , and anarchist authors. It is about the lives of the poor, and the period from 1930 to 1945, in particular, produced many such novels. However, proletarian works were also produced before and after those dates. In Britain, the terms " working-class " literature, novel, etc., are more generally used. A closely related type of novel, which frequently has
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#17327902685998372-641: Is no question, therefore, about Condon's familiarity with the works of Robert Graves. All novels except as noted: This article incorporates material from the Citizendium article " Richard Condon ", which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License but not under the GFDL . Political novel Plato 's Republic , a Socratic dialogue written around 380 BC, has been one of
8533-473: Is paramount in The Secret Agent , as the main character, Verloc, works for a quasi-political organisation. The plot to destroy Greenwich Observatory is in itself anarchistic. Vladimir asserts that the bombing "must be purely destructive" and that the anarchists who will be implicated as the architects of the explosion "should make it clear that [they] are perfectly determined to make a clean sweep of
8694-401: Is set amid political upheaval in the fictitious South American country of Costaguana, where a trusted Italian-descended longshoreman, Giovanni Battista Fidanza—the novel's eponymous "Nostromo" (Italian for "our man")—is instructed by English-descended silver-mine owner Charles Gould to take Gould's silver abroad so that it will not fall into the hands of revolutionaries. The role of politics
8855-508: Is set in a small Midlands industrial town and particularly criticizes the effect of Utilitarianism on the lives of cities' working classes. John Ruskin declared Hard Times his favourite Dickens work due to its exploration of important social questions. Walter Allen characterised Hard Times as an unsurpassed "critique of industrial society", Other notable examples are in the main lists, above. Angela Lansbury Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury (October 16, 1925 – October 11, 2022)
9016-501: Is won by the proponent of reforms. An early example of the political novel is The Betrothed (1827) by Alessandro Manzoni , an Italian historical novel . Set in northern Italy in 1628, during the oppressive years of direct Spanish rule, it has been seen sometimes as a veiled attack on the Austrian Empire , which controlled Italy at the time the novel was written. It has been called the most famous and widely read novel in
9177-596: The Aldwych Theatre . She portrayed the mistress of a dying New England millionaire, and although the play's reviews were mixed, Lansbury's acting was widely praised. This was followed by her reluctant involvement in a revival of Mame , which was then touring the United States, after which she returned to the West End to play the character of Rose in the musical Gypsy . She had initially turned down
9338-460: The Chronicle . In Some Angry Angel , the book that followed The Manchurian Candidate , Condon makes a direct reference to Graves. In a long, convoluted passage on page 25, Condon reflects on "mistresses" and their relationship—a peripheral one, to the reader—to Graves's writings about "Major Male" Deities and "Major Female" Deities. As Angel was published only a year after Candidate , there
9499-559: The Forrestal class when rubbed into the armor plate. Condon was also enamored of long lists of detailed trivia that, while at least marginally pertinent to the subject at hand, are almost always an exercise in gleeful exaggeration and joyful spirits. In An Infinity of Mirrors, for instance, those in attendance of the funeral of a famous French actor and notable lover are delineated as: Seven ballerinas of an amazing spectrum of ages were at graveside. Actresses of films, opera, music halls,
9660-625: The Majestic Theatre on Broadway in April 1964, but was critically panned and closed after nine performances. Lansbury had played the role of crooked mayoress Cora Hoover Hooper, and although she loved Sondheim's score she experienced personal differences with Laurents and was glad when the show closed. She appeared in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), a cinematic biopic of Jesus, but was cut almost entirely from
9821-592: The Old Vic . Directed by Peter Hall , the production ran from December 1975 to May 1976 and received mixed reviews. Lansbury disliked the role, later commenting that she found it "very trying playing restrained roles" such as Gertrude. Her mood was worsened by her mother's death in November 1975. Her next theatrical appearance was in two one-act plays by Albee, Counting the Ways and Listening , performed side by side at
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#17327902685999982-562: The Spanish Civil War . The Soviet Union, he believed, had become a brutal dictatorship , built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror . Orwell described his Animal Farm as "a satirical tale against Stalin", and in his essay " Why I Write " (1946) he wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole." Orwell's most famous work, however,
10143-579: The revolutions of 1917 . Conrad's earlier novella, Heart of Darkness (1899), also had political implications, in its depiction of European colonial depredations in Africa , which Conrad witnessed during his employ in the Belgian Congo . John Steinbeck 's novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is a depiction of the plight of the poor. However, some Steinbeck's contemporaries attacked his social and political views. Bryan Cordyack writes: "Steinbeck
10304-455: The utopian and dystopian genres. This includes totalitarian dystopias of the early 20th century such as Jack London 's The Iron Heel , Sinclair Lewis ' It Can't Happen Here , and George Orwell 's Nineteen Eighty-Four . The Greek playwright Aristophanes ' plays are known for their political and social satire, particularly in his criticism of the powerful Athenian general, Cleon , in plays such as The Knights . Aristophanes
10465-630: The 1950s. Graham Greene portrays a U.S. official named Pyle as so blinded by American exceptionalism that he cannot see the calamities he brings upon the Vietnamese. The book uses Greene's experiences as a war correspondent for The Times and Le Figaro in French Indochina in 1951–54. The Gay Place (1961) is a set of politically themed novellas with interlocking plots and characters by American author Billy Lee Brammer . Set in an unnamed state identical to Texas, each novella has
10626-418: The 1958 non-musical film adaptation , but she had declined. Lansbury actively sought the role in the hope that it would mark a change in her career. When she was chosen, it came as a surprise to theatre critics, who believed that the part would go to a better-known actress; Lansbury was 41 years old, and it was her first starring role. Mame Dennis was a glamorous character, with over 20 costume changes throughout
10787-403: The 1992–1993 season, something that she felt "made it far more interesting to me." For the seventh season, the show's primary setting moved to New York City, where Fletcher had taken a job teaching criminology at Manhattan University; the move, encouraged by Lansbury, was an attempt to attract younger viewers. Having become a "Sunday-night institution" in the US, the show's ratings improved during
10948-480: The 1996 television film Mrs. Santa Claus , with Lansbury playing the eponymous character , which proved to be a ratings success. Murder, She Wrote continued through several made-for-television films: South By Southwest in 1997, A Story To Die For in 2000, The Last Free Man in 2001, and The Celtic Riddle in 2003. The role of Fletcher would prove the most successful and prominent of Lansbury's career, and she would later speak critically of attempts to reboot
11109-569: The 2005 film Nanny McPhee as Aunt Adelaide, later informing an interviewer that working on it "pulled me out of the abyss" after her husband's death. Lansbury returned to Broadway after a 23-year absence in Deuce , a play by Terrence McNally that opened at the Music Box Theatre in May 2007 for an 18-week limited run. Lansbury received a Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actress in
11270-480: The American scene, breath-taking elements from thrillers and spy fiction, horrific and grotesque violence, and an obsession with the minutiae of food, drink, and fast living. It quickly made him, for a few years at least, the center of a cult devoted to his works. As he rapidly produced more and more books with the same central themes, however, this following fell away and his critical reputation diminished. Still, over
11431-541: The Atlantic Ocean near to Ballywilliam, County Cork, which she had had built as a family home in 1991. In the years following Murder, She Wrote , Lansbury was increasingly preoccupied by her husband's deteriorating health; it was for this reason that she dropped out of being the lead role in the 2001 Kander and Ebb musical The Visit before it opened. Peter died in January 2003 of congestive heart failure at
11592-641: The Blitz , she moved to the United States in 1940, studying acting in New York City. Proceeding to Hollywood in 1942, she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and obtained her first film roles, in Gaslight (1944), National Velvet (1944), and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). She appeared in 11 further MGM films, mostly in minor roles, and after her contract ended in 1952, she began to supplement her cinematic work with theatrical appearances. Lansbury
11753-581: The Clouds Roll By (1947), If Winter Comes (1947), Tenth Avenue Angel (1948), The Three Musketeers (1948), State of the Union (1948) and The Red Danube (1949). Lansbury was loaned by MGM first to United Artists for The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947), and then to Paramount for Samson and Delilah (1949). She appeared as a villainous maidservant in Kind Lady (1951) and
11914-539: The Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut. Reviews of the production were mixed, although Lansbury was again singled out for praise. This was followed by another revival tour of Gypsy . In April 1978, Lansbury appeared in 24 performances of a revival of The King and I musical staged at Broadway's Uris Theatre ; Lansbury played the role of Mrs Anna , replacing Constance Towers , who was on
12075-639: The Heller Administration is mentioned, implying that he is the president of the United States. Condon was a great friend of actor Allan Melvin , having written a nightclub act for him. Condon later became a publicist for The Phil Silvers Show ( Sgt. Bilko ), on which Melvin played Cpl. Henshaw. Melvin's name shows up in several Condon books, most prominently as hitman Al (the Plumber) Melvini in Prizzi's Honor (a play on Melvin's "Al
12236-542: The Italian language. In the 1840s British politician Benjamin Disraeli wrote a trilogy of novels with political themes. With Coningsby; or, The New Generation (1844), Disraeli, in historian Robert Blake 's view, "infused the novel genre with political sensibility, espousing the belief that England's future as a world power depended not on the complacent old guard, but on youthful, idealistic politicians." Coningsby
12397-522: The Plumber" character in Liquid-Plumr commercials.) In The Manchurian Candidate , with the exception of Marco, Shaw and Mavole, all of Marco's platoon members are named for the cast/crew of Bilko : (Nat) Hiken, (Maurice) Gosfield, (Jimmy) Little, (Phil) Silvers, (Allan) Melvin, (Mickey) Freeman and (Harvey) Lembeck. In Prizzi's Honor , a New York City policeman named McCarry is mentioned once;
12558-650: The Top of the Stairs (1960) drew critical acclaim, as did her appearance in All Fall Down (1962) as a manipulative, destructive mother. In 1962, she appeared in the Cold War thriller The Manchurian Candidate as Eleanor Iselin, cast for the role by John Frankenheimer . Although Lansbury played actor Laurence Harvey 's mother in the film, she was in fact only three years older than him. She had agreed to appear in
12719-675: The US; in Chicago, Lansbury was awarded the Sarah Siddons Award for her performance. The show eventually reached Broadway, where it ran until January 1975. A critical success, it earned Lansbury her third Tony Award. After several months' break, Gypsy toured the US again in the summer of 1975. Wanting to move on from musicals, Lansbury obtained the role of Gertrude in the National Theatre Company 's production of William Shakespeare 's Hamlet , staged at
12880-495: The Year". When the film adaptation of Mame was put into production, Lansbury hoped to be offered the part, but it instead went to Lucille Ball , an established box-office success. Lansbury considered this to be "one of my bitterest disappointments". Her personal life was further complicated when she learned that both of her children had become involved with the counterculture of the 1960s and had been using recreational drugs . As
13041-705: The appearance to be a gift for her three grandchildren. Lansbury again lent her voice to an animated character, this time that of the Empress Dowager , for the 1997 film Anastasia . Lansbury's Murder, She Wrote fame resulted in her being employed to appear in advertisements and infomercials for Bufferin , MasterCard and the Beatrix Potter Company. In 1988, she released a VHS video titled Angela Lansbury's Positive Moves: My Personal Plan for Fitness and Well-Being , in which she outlined her personal exercise routine, and in 1990 published
13202-639: The ascendant commercial empires in Thomas More's Europe. The political comedy The Return of the Deputy (1790), by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz —Polish poet, playwright, statesman, and comrade-in-arms of Tadeusz Kościuszko —was written in about two weeks' time while Niemcewicz was serving as a deputy to the historic Four-Year Sejm of 1788–92. The comedy's premiere in January 1791 was an enormous success, sparking widespread debate, royal communiques, and diplomatic correspondence. As Niemcewicz had hoped, it set
13363-736: The best American political novels ever written. Since 2000, there has been a surge of Transatlantic migrant literature in French, Spanish, and English, with new narratives about political topics relating to global debt, labor abuses, mass migration, and environmental crises in the Global South. Political fiction by contemporary novelists from the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America directly challenges political leadership, systemic racism, and economical systems. Fatou Diome ,
13524-454: The book with great fidelity, and is now highly regarded as a glimpse into the mindset of its era. Janet Maslin , writing already over two decades ago, said in The New York Times in 1996 that it was "arguably the most chilling piece of cold war paranoia ever committed to film, yet by now it has developed a kind of innocence." Beginning with his first book, The Oldest Confession , Condon frequently prefaced his novels with excerpts of verse from
13685-417: The boorish, verbally abusive mother of Josephine (played by Joan Plowright , only four years Lansbury's junior), remarking that she gained "a great deal of satisfaction" from the role. During the show's run, Lansbury developed a friendship with both Plowright and Plowright's lover Laurence Olivier ; it was from Lansbury's rented flat on East 97th Street that Plowright and Olivier eloped to be married. After
13846-517: The character as "an American Miss Marple". Murder, She Wrote had been created by Peter S. Fischer , Richard Levinson , and William Link , who had earlier had success with Columbo , and the role of Fletcher had been first offered to Jean Stapleton , who had declined it. The pilot episode, "The Murder of Sherlock Holmes", premiered on CBS on September 30, 1984, with the rest of the first season airing on Sundays from 8 to 9 pm. Although critical reviews were mixed, it proved highly popular, with
14007-470: The character in a relationship, believing that the character should remain a strong single woman. When she believed that a scriptwriter had made Fletcher do or say things that did not fit with the character's personality, Lansbury ensured that the script was changed. She saw Fletcher as a role model for older female viewers, praising her "enormous, universal appeal – that was an accomplishment I never expected in my entire life." Edelman and Kupferberg described
14168-513: The couple's Brentwood home. Lansbury felt that after this she would not take on any more major acting roles, perhaps only making cameo appearances . Wanting to spend more time in New York City, in 2006 she purchased a $ 2 million condominium in Manhattan . Lansbury appeared in a season six episode of the television show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit , for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2005. She also starred in
14329-532: The deceased. Writing about The Whisper of the Axe in the daily book review column of Friday, May 21, 1976, in the New York Times , Richard R. Lingeman praised the book in particular and Condon in general for the "extravagance of invention unique with him." Not everyone was as exhilarated by Condon's antics, however. In a long Times Sunday review just two days after Lingeman's, Roger Sale excoriated Condon as
14490-486: The depiction of the role made famous by Margaret Rutherford , instead returning to Christie's description of the character. She was signed to appear in two sequels as Miss Marple, but these were never made. Lansbury's next film was the animated The Last Unicorn (1982), for which she provided the voice of the witch Mommy Fortuna. Returning to musical cinema, she starred as Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance (1983),
14651-484: The early 1990s, becoming a Top Five programme. For the show's 12th season, CBS executives moved Murder, She Wrote to Thursdays at 8 pm, opposite NBC's new sitcom, Friends . Lansbury was upset by the move, believing that it ignored the show's core audience. This would prove to be the series' final season. The final episode aired on May 19, 1996, and ended with Lansbury voicing a "Goodbye from Jessica" message. In The Washington Post , Tom Shales suggested that
14812-557: The entire wonderful promise of tomorrow and tomorrow, always dragging the great nation downward into greater violence and more unnecessary deaths, into newer and more positive celebration of nonlife, all so that the savage, simple-minded people might be educated into greater frenzies of understanding that power and money are the only desirable objects for this life. Although not perhaps actually originated by Condon himself, his use of "the Manchurian Candidate" made that phrase
14973-411: The eponymous cockney in a television film adaptation of the novel Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris , directed by her son and executive produced by her stepson. Lansbury's highest profile cinematic role since The Manchurian Candidate was as the voice of the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in the 1991 Disney animation Beauty and the Beast , as part of which she performed the film's title song . She considered
15134-411: The fact that I had to get on with something. Mame came along out of the blue just at this time. Now isn't that a miracle?. – Angela Lansbury. In 1966, Lansbury took on the title role of Mame Dennis in the musical Mame , Jerry Herman 's musical adaptation of the 1955 novel Auntie Mame . The director's first choice for the role had been Rosalind Russell , who played Mame in
15295-683: The family had moved to an apartment on Morton Street, Greenwich Village . Macgill secured work in a Canadian touring production of Tonight at 8:30 , and was joined by her daughter. There, Lansbury gained her first theatrical job as a nightclub act at the Samovar Club, Montreal, singing songs by Noël Coward . Although 16 years old, she claimed to be 19 to secure the job. Lansbury returned to New York City in August 1942, but her mother had moved to Hollywood, Los Angeles, to resurrect her cinematic career; Lansbury and her brothers followed. Moving into
15456-551: The fiction of information... As a practitioner of the fiction of information, no one else comes close to him." Condon attacked his targets wholeheartedly but with a uniquely original style and wit that made almost any paragraph from one of his books instantly recognizable. Reviewing one of his works in the International Herald Tribune , playwright George Axelrod ( The Seven Year Itch , Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter ), who had collaborated with Condon on
15617-548: The fictional Hellers shared, sometimes to ludicrous effect, as when a battle-hardened Admiral Heller is depicted issuing orders while absorbed in needlework. The real-life Heller made one needlework depiction of the manor house in Ireland in which Condon was living at the time. In Prizzi's Honor , Marxie Heller is a mobster and murder victim; in Prizzi's Family , Franklin Heller is the mayor of New York City; in Prizzi's Glory ,
15778-445: The film after reading the original novel , describing it as "one of the most exciting political books I ever read". Biographers Edelman and Kupferberg considered this role "her enduring cinematic triumph," while Gottfried stated that it was "the strongest, the most memorable and the best picture she ever made... she gives her finest film performance in it." Lansbury received her third Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for
15939-485: The film on television programmes like the David Frost Show . She later noted that as a big commercial success, this film "secured an enormous audience for me". The year 1970 was a traumatic one for the Lansbury family, as Peter underwent a hip replacement, Anthony suffered a heroin overdose and entered a coma, and the family's Malibu home was destroyed in a brush fire. They then purchased Knockmourne Glebe,
16100-699: The film. She followed this with a performance as Sybil Logan in In the Cool of the Day (1963) – a film she denounced as awful – before appearing as wealthy Isabel Boyd in The World of Henry Orient (1964) and the widow Phyllis in Dear Heart (1964). Her first appearance in a theatrical musical was the short-lived Anyone Can Whistle , written by Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim . An experimental work, it opened at
16261-640: The final edit. She followed this with appearances as Mama Jean Bello in Harlow (1965), as Lady Blystone in The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965), and as Gloria in Mister Buddwing (1966). Although many of her cinematic roles had been well received, "celluloid superstardom" evaded Lansbury, and she became increasingly dissatisfied with these minor roles, feeling that none allowed her to explore her potential as an actress. I
16422-479: The keen... at a wake or funeral." Five of Condon's first six books derived their titles from the fictional manual, the only exception being his most famous book, The Manchurian Candidate . The epigraph in The Manchurian Candidate , however, "I am you and you are me /and what have we done to each other?" is a recurring theme in earlier Condon's books: in various forms it also appears as dialog in both The Oldest Confession and Some Angry Angel . Among other epigraphs,
16583-399: The last line of "The riches I bring you /Crowding and shoving, /Are the envy of princes: /A talent for loving." is the title of Condon's fourth novel. His fifth and sixth novels, An Infinity of Mirrors and Any God Will Do , also derive their titles from excerpts of the manual. Years later, Condon's 1988 novel Prizzi's Glory also had an epigraph from the manual, the first one in at least
16744-409: The mainstream political corruptions that he found so prevalent in American life. In a 1977 quotation, he said that: ...people are being manipulated, exploited, murdered by their servants, who have convinced these savage, simple-minded populations that they are their masters, and that it hurts the head, if one thinks. People accept servants as masters. My novels are merely entertaining persuasions to get
16905-474: The majority of these films were "mediocre", doing little to further her career. This view was echoed by Cukor, who believed Lansbury had been "consistently miscast" by MGM. She was repeatedly made to portray older women, often villainous, and as a result she became increasingly dissatisfied with working for MGM, commenting that "I kept wanting to play the Jean Arthur roles, and Mr Mayer kept casting me as
17066-608: The mother of a victim of the real-life Korean Air Lines Flight 007 plane crash – in Shootdown . 1989 saw her featured in The Shell Seekers as an Englishwoman recuperating from a heart attack, and in 1990 she starred in The Love She Sought as an American school teacher who falls in love with a Catholic priest while visiting Ireland; Lansbury thought it "a marvelous woman's story." She next starred as
17227-572: The musical received mixed critical reviews, although earned Lansbury her fourth Tony Award and After Dark magazine's Ruby Award for Broadway Performer of the Year. She returned to the role in October 1980 for a ten-month US tour; the production was also filmed and broadcast on the Entertainment Channel. In 1982, Lansbury took on the role of an upper middle-class housewife who champions workers' rights in A Little Family Business ,
17388-505: The next three decades Condon produced works that returned him to favor, both with the critics and the book-buying public, such as Mile High , Winter Kills , and the first of the Prizzi books, Prizzi's Honor . Of his numerous books that were turned into Hollywood movies, The Manchurian Candidate was filmed twice. The first version, in 1962, which starred Frank Sinatra , Laurence Harvey , Janet Leigh , and Angela Lansbury , followed
17549-400: The one they live in. The character Thomas More is sent by King Henry VIII of England to negotiate the English wool trade. There he meets a man by the name Raphael Hythloday. He is a man that has been to the island on Utopia. He explains to More how their entire philosophy is to find happiness and share everything collectively; in this society, money does not exist, which starkly contrasts with
17710-577: The onset of the Blitz , Macgill decided to take Angela, Bruce and Edgar to the United States; Isolde remained in Britain with her new husband, the actor Peter Ustinov . Macgill secured a job supervising 60 British children who were being evacuated to North America aboard the Duchess of Athol , arriving with them in Montreal , Canada, in August 1940. She then proceeded by train to New York City, where she
17871-561: The other hand, George Orwell , in his essay on Dickens, wrote: "There is no clear sign that he wants the existing order to be overthrown, or that he believes it would make very much difference if it were overthrown. For in reality his target is not so much society as 'human nature'." Dickens's second novel, Oliver Twist (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime: it destroyed middle-class polemics about criminals, making any pretence to ignorance about what poverty entailed impossible. Charles Dickens 's Hard Times (1854)
18032-490: The people to think in other categories. With his long lists of absurd trivia and "mania for absolute details", Condon was, along with Ian Fleming , one of the early exemplars of those called by Pete Hamill in a New York Times review, "the practitioners of what might be called the New Novelism... Condon applies a dense web of facts to fiction.... There might really be two kinds of fiction: the fiction of sensibility and
18193-574: The people who can pay forty-five or fifty dollars for a [theatre] seat. – Angela Lansbury. Working in cinema, in 1979 Lansbury appeared as Miss Froy in The Lady Vanishes , a remake of Alfred Hitchcock 's 1938 film . The following year she appeared in The Mirror Crack'd , another film based on an Agatha Christie novel , this time as Miss Marple , a sleuth in 1950s Kent . Lansbury hoped to get away from
18354-513: The pilot having a Nielsen rating of 18.9 and the first season being rated top in its time slot. Designed as inoffensive family viewing, as despite its topic the show eschewed depicting violence or gore, it followed the " whodunit " format rather than those of most US crime shows of the time. Lansbury herself commented that "best of all, there's no violence. I hate violence." Lansbury exerted creative input over Fletcher's costumes, makeup and hair, and rejected pressure from network executives to put
18515-533: The play, and Lansbury's role involved ten songs and dance routines for which she trained extensively. First appearing in Philadelphia and then Boston , Mame opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in May 1966. Auntie Mame was already popular among the gay community, and Mame gained Lansbury a cult gay following, something that she later attributed to the fact that Mame Dennis
18676-438: The plight of child labor, violence against women, rising criminality, and epidemics caused by overcrowding and poor sanitation in cities. Charles Dickens was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. Karl Marx asserted that Dickens "issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together". On
18837-447: The political thriller writer Charles McCarry was a friend of Condon's and, as a former operative of the CIA , was a occasional source of expertise in the field of espionage for Condon. In a number of books a character named Keifetz appears, named apparently for Norman Keifetz , a New York City author who wrote a novel about a major league baseball player called The Sensation —that novel
18998-599: The poor, as well as British policy toward the Irish in general. George Orwell 's Animal Farm (1945) is an allegorical and dystopian novella which satirises the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Soviet Union 's Stalinist era . Orwell, a democratic socialist , was a critic of Joseph Stalin and was hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism —an attitude that had been shaped by his experiences during
19159-492: The powers that be are vulnerable to co-option, seduction , subornation, defamation , intimidation, and assassination . Perhaps the chief lesson, belatedly absorbed by Ramses as pharaoh, is the importance, to power, of knowledge . Prus' vision of the fall of an ancient civilization derives some of its power from the author's intimate awareness of the final demise of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795,
19320-424: The privileges of the mostly self-interested noble class ; and of promoting a more active Polish role in international affairs, in the interest of stopping the depredations of Poland's neighbors, Russia, Prussia, and Austria (who will in 1795 complete the dismemberment of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ). Romantic interest is provided by a rivalry between a reformer and a conservative for a young lady's hand—which
19481-412: The republic with a more modern, highly organized lust for violence and the quick buck. It fused the need to massacre twelve hundred thousand American Indians and ten million American buffalo, the lynching bees, the draft riots, bread riots, gold riots and race riots, the constant wars, the largest rats in the biggest slums, boxing and football, the loudest music, the most strident and exploitative press with
19642-517: The role of Nancy Oliver, a cockney maid; she was accepted for the part, although, since she was only 17, a social worker had to accompany her on the set. Obtaining an agent, Earl Kramer, she was signed to a seven-year contract with MGM , earning $ 500 a week. Gaslight received critical acclaim, and Lansbury's performance was widely praised, earning her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress . Her next film appearance
19803-634: The role of the Countess von Ornstein, an ageing German aristocrat who falls in love with a younger man, in Something for Everyone (1970), for which she filmed on location in Hohenschwangen , Bavaria . That same year, she appeared as the middle-aged English witch Eglantine Price in the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks ; this was her first lead in a screen musical, and led to her publicizing
19964-401: The role, not wishing to be in the shadow of Ethel Merman , who had portrayed the character in the original Broadway production. When the show started in May 1973, Lansbury earned a standing ovation and rave reviews. Settling into a Belgravia flat, she was soon in demand among London society, having dinners held in her honour. Following the culmination of the London run, in 1974 Gypsy toured
20125-619: The roles she was being given by MGM, Lansbury instructed her manager, Harry Friedman of MCA Inc. , to terminate her contract in 1952. That same year, she gave birth to her first child, Anthony. Soon after the birth, she joined the East Coast touring productions of two former-Broadway plays: Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse 's Remains to be Seen and Louis Verneuil 's Affairs of State . Biographer Margaret Bonanno later stated that at this point, Lansbury's career had "hit an all-time low". In April 1953, her daughter Deirdre Angela Shaw
20286-489: The screenplay for the film adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate , wrote: The arrival of a new novel by Richard Condon is like an invitation to a party.... the sheer gusto of the prose, the madness of his similes, the lunacy of his metaphors, his infectious, almost child-like joy in composing complex sentences that go bang at the end in the manner of exploding cigars is both exhilarating and as exhausting as any good party ought to be. From his 1975 novel, Money Is Love , comes
20447-587: The series as "a television landmark" in the US for having an older female character as the protagonist, paving the way for later series like The Golden Girls . Lansbury commented that "I think it's the first time a show has really been aimed at the middle aged audience", and although it was most popular among senior citizens , it gradually gained a younger audience; by 1991, a third of viewers were under fifty. It gained continually high ratings throughout most of its run, outdoing rivals in its time slot such as Steven Spielberg 's Amazing Stories on NBC . In 1987,
20608-456: The series had become "partly a victim of commercial television's mad youth mania". There were "vocal protests" at its cancellation from the show's fanbase. At the time, it tied the original Hawaii Five-O as the longest-running detective drama series in history. Lansbury initially had plans for a Murder, She Wrote television film that would be a musical with a score composed by Jerry Herman; that project did not materialize but resulted in
20769-623: The series with a different actress in the lead. Throughout the run of Murder, She Wrote , Lansbury had continued appearing in other television films, miniseries and cinema. In 1986, she co-hosted the New York Philharmonic 's televised tribute to the centenary of the Statue of Liberty with Kirk Douglas . That same year, she appeared as the protagonist's mother in Rage of Angels: The Story Continues , and in 1988 portrayed Nan Moore –
20930-637: The slave trade, Islam, Christianity, and colonization (from 1797 to 1860). A bold critic of the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy , French novelist Marie Ndiayes won the Prix Goncourt for " Three Strong Women "(2009) about patriarchal control. The proletarian novel is written by workers, mainly for other workers. It overlaps and sometimes is synonymous with the working-class novel, socialist novel, social-problem novel (also problem novel, sociological novel, or social novel ), propaganda or thesis novel, and socialist-realism novel. The intention of
21091-576: The stage for passage of Poland's epochal Constitution of 3 May 1791 , which is regarded as Europe's first, and the world's second, modern written national constitution, after the United States Constitution implemented in 1789. The comedy pits proponents against opponents of political reforms: of abolishing the destabilizing free election of Poland's kings; of abolishing the legislatively destructive liberum veto ; of granting greater rights to peasants and townspeople; of curbing
21252-514: The stage musicals Gypsy , Sweeney Todd , and The King and I , as well as in the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Moving into television in 1984, she achieved worldwide fame as the sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the American whodunit series Murder, She Wrote , which ran for twelve seasons until 1996, becoming one of the longest-running and most popular detective drama series in television history. Through Corymore Productions ,
21413-526: The stage, Lansbury made further television appearances, such as on Perry Como 's Thanksgiving Special in November 1966. She also engaged in high-profile charitable endeavours, for instance appearing as the guest of honour at the 1967 March of Dimes annual benefit luncheon. She was invited to star in a musical performance for the 1968 Academy Awards ceremony, and co-hosted that year's Tony Awards with former brother-in-law Peter Ustinov. That year, Harvard University 's Hasty Pudding Club elected her "Woman of
21574-399: The theatre, radio, carnivals, circuses, pantomimes, and lewd exhibitions mourned in the front line. There were also society leaders, lady scientists, women politicians, mannequins, couturières, Salvation Army lassies, all but one of his wives, a lady wrestler, a lady matador, twenty-three lady painters, four lady sculptors, a car-wash attendant, shopgirls, shoplifters, shoppers, and the shopped;
21735-444: The whole social creation." However, the political form of anarchism is ultimately controlled in the novel: the only supposed politically motivated act is orchestrated by a secret government agency. Conrad's third political novel, Under Western Eyes , is connected to Russian history. Its first audience read it against the backdrop of the failed Revolution of 1905 and in the shadow of the movements and impulses that would take shape as
21896-447: The world of Mr. Condon. He was also a visionary, a darkly comic conjurer, a student of American mythology and a master of conspiracy theories, as vividly demonstrated in 'The Manchurian Candidate'." Although his books combined many different elements, including occasional outright fantasy and science fiction, they were, above all, written to entertain the general public. He had, however, a genuine disdain, outrage, and even hatred for many of
22057-530: The world's most influential works of philosophy and political theory , both intellectually and historically. The Republic is concerned with justice ( δικαιοσύνη ), the order and character of the just city-state , and the just man. Other influential politically themed works include Thomas More 's Utopia (1516), Jonathan Swift 's Gulliver's Travels (1726), Voltaire 's Candide (1759), and Harriet Beecher Stowe 's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Political fiction frequently employs satire , often in
22218-539: The writer Aldous Huxley . At a party hosted by her mother, Lansbury met John van Druten , who had recently co-authored a script for Gaslight (1944), a mystery-thriller based on Patrick Hamilton 's 1938 play, Gas Light . The film was being directed by George Cukor and starred Ingrid Bergman in the lead role of Paula Alquist, a woman in Victorian London being psychologically tormented by her husband. Druten suggested that Lansbury would be perfect for
22379-436: The writers of proletarian literature is to lift the workers from the slums by inspiring them to embrace the possibilities of social change or of a political revolution. As such, it is a form of political fiction. The proletarian novel may comment on political events, systems, and theories, and is frequently seen as an instrument to promote social reform or political revolution among the working classes. Proletarian literature
22540-402: Was "every gay person's idea of glamour... Everything about Mame coincided with every young man's idea of beauty and glory and it was lovely." Reviews of Lansbury's performance were overwhelmingly positive. In The New York Times , Stanley Kauffmann wrote: "Miss Lansbury is a singing-dancing actress, not a singer or dancer who also acts... In this marathon role she has wit, poise, warmth and
22701-468: Was a television director in New York City in the 1950s, '60s, and 70s, who initially lived on Long Island and then moved to a house on Rockrimmon Road in Stamford, Connecticut . Beginning with Mile High in 1969, mentions of a Rockrimmon Road or Rockrimmon House also began to appear regularly in the novels. Late in life Heller grew a thick white beard and became a devotee of needlework —both traits that
22862-429: Was a wife and a mother, and I was completely fulfilled. But my husband recognised the signals in me which said 'I've been doing enough gardening, I've cooked enough good dinners, I've sat around the house and mooned about what more interior decoration I can get my fingers into.' It's a curious thing with actors and actresses, but suddenly the alarm goes off. My husband is a very sensitive person to my moods and he recognised
23023-408: Was an Irish-British and American actress. In a career spanning 80 years, she played various roles across film, stage, and television. Although based for much of her life in the United States, her work attracted international attention. Lansbury was born into an upper-middle-class family in central London , the daughter of Irish actress Moyna Macgill and English politician Edgar Lansbury . To escape
23184-561: Was an aspiring actor, also signed to MGM, and had recently left a relationship with Joan Crawford . He and Lansbury became a couple, living together before she proposed marriage. They wanted a wedding in Britain, but the Church of England refused to marry two divorcees. Instead, they wed at St. Columba's Church , a place of worship under the jurisdiction of the Church of Scotland , in Knightsbridge , London, in August 1949, followed by
23345-591: Was as Edwina Brown in National Velvet (1944); the film became a major commercial success and Lansbury developed a lifelong friendship with co-star Elizabeth Taylor . Lansbury next starred in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), a cinematic adaptation of Wilde's 1890 novel of the same name , which was again set in Victorian London. Directed by Albert Lewin , Lansbury was cast as Sybil Vane,
23506-522: Was attacked as a propagandist and a socialist from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The most fervent of these attacks came from the Associated Farmers of California; they were displeased with the book's depiction of California farmers' attitudes and conduct toward the migrants. They denounced the book as a 'pack of lies' and labeled it 'communist propaganda'". Some accused Steinbeck of exaggerating camp conditions to make
23667-628: Was awarded her second Tony Award on the basis of it. Reviews of the show more generally were critical, however, and it ended after 132 performances. She followed this with an appearance in the title role of the musical Prettybelle , based upon Jean Arnold's Prettybelle: A Lively Tale of Rape and Resurrection . Set in the Deep South , it dealt with issues of racism, with Lansbury playing a wealthy alcoholic who seeks sexual encounters with black men. The play opened in Boston, but received poor reviews and
23828-648: Was born in Regent's Park , central London . Her mother was Belfast -born Irish Moyna Macgill (born Charlotte Lillian McIldowie), an actress who regularly appeared on stage in London's West End and who also appeared in several films. Her father was the wealthy English timber merchant and politician Edgar Lansbury , a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and former mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar . Her paternal grandfather
23989-573: Was born. Shaw had a son by a previous marriage, David, whom he brought to California to live with the family after he gained legal custody of the boy in 1953. Now with three children to care for, Lansbury moved to a larger house in San Vicente Boulevard in Santa Monica . Lansbury did not feel entirely comfortable in the Hollywood social scene, later commenting that as a result of her British roots, "in Hollywood, I always felt like
24150-599: Was cancelled before it reached Broadway. Lansbury later described the play as "a complete and utter fiasco", admitting that in her opinion, her "performance was awful". In the early 1970s, Lansbury declined several cinematic roles, including the lead in The Killing of Sister George and the role of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , because she was not satisfied with them. Instead, she accepted
24311-411: Was dedicated to Condon. A.H. Weiler , a film critic for The New York Times , was another friend of Condon's who made several fictional appearances, usually as Abraham Weiler but sometimes as a Dr. Abe Weiler. In The Oldest Confession , a character has lunch in a Paris bistro and briefly meets two people playing chess at the bar, "Buchwald and Nolan, newspaper and airline peons respectively". Buchwald
24472-429: Was financially sponsored by a Wall Street businessman, Charles T. Smith, moving in with his family at their home at Mahopac, New York . Lansbury gained a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing to study at the Feagin School of Drama and Radio , where she appeared in performances of William Congreve 's The Way of the World and Oscar Wilde 's Lady Windermere's Fan . She graduated in March 1942, by which time
24633-511: Was followed by Sybil; or, The Two Nations (1845), another political novel, which was less idealistic and more clear-eyed than Coningsby ; the "two nations" of its subtitle referred to the huge economic and social gap between the privileged few and the deprived working classes. The last of Disraeli's political-novel trilogy, Tancred; or, The New Crusade (1847), promoted the Church of England's role in reviving Britain's flagging spirituality. Ivan Turgenev wrote Fathers and Sons (1862) as
24794-595: Was largely seen as a B-list star during this period, but her role in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) received widespread acclaim and is frequently ranked as one of her best performances. Moving into musical theatre, Lansbury gained stardom for playing the leading role in the Broadway musical Mame (1966), winning her first Tony Award and becoming a gay icon . Amid difficulties in her personal life, Lansbury moved from California to Ireland's County Cork in 1970. She continued to make theatrical and cinematic appearances throughout that decade, including leading roles in
24955-456: Was not published until he was 43. The demands of his career with United Artists—promoting movies such as The Pride and the Passion and The King and Four Queens —led to a series of bleeding ulcers and a determination to do something else. His next book, The Manchurian Candidate , combined all the elements that defined his works for the next 30 years: nefarious conspiracies, satire, black humor, outrage at political and financial corruption in
25116-654: Was receiving fan mail from people who thought her in her forties. She obtained minor roles in such films as A Life at Stake (1954), A Lawless Street (1955) and The Purple Mask (1955), later describing the latter as "the worst movie I ever made." She played Princess Gwendolyn in the comedy film The Court Jester (1956), before taking on the role of a wife who kills her husband in Please Murder Me (1956). From there she appeared as Minnie Littlejohn in The Long Hot Summer (1958), and as Mabel Claremont in The Reluctant Debutante (1958), for which she filmed in Paris. Biographer Martin Gottfried has claimed that it
25277-440: Was responsible for popularizing the use of the term " nihilism ", which became widely used after the novel was published. The Polish writer Bolesław Prus ' novel, Pharaoh (1895), is set in the Egypt of 1087–85 BCE as that country experiences internal stresses and external threats that will culminate in the fall of its Twentieth Dynasty and New Kingdom . The young protagonist Ramses learns that those who would challenge
25438-413: Was the Labour Party leader George Lansbury , a man whom she felt "awed" by and considered "a giant in my youth". Angela had an older half-sister, Isolde, from Macgill's previous marriage to Reginald Denham . In January 1930, Macgill gave birth to twin boys, Bruce and Edgar , leading the Lansburys to move from their Poplar flat to a house in Mill Hill , north London ; at weekends, they would stay at
25599-427: Was these latter two cinematic appearances which restored Lansbury's status as an " A-picture actress." Throughout this period, she continued making television appearances, starring in episodes of The Revlon Mirror Theater , Ford Theatre and The George Gobel Show , and became a regular on game show Pantomime Quiz . In April 1957, she debuted on Broadway at the Henry Miller Theatre in Hotel Paradiso ,
25760-408: Was unable to do both, her agents advised her to accept the former, but Lansbury chose the latter. Her decision was based on the appeal of the series' central character, Jessica Fletcher , a retired school teacher from the fictional town of Cabot Cove, Maine. As portrayed by Lansbury, Fletcher was a successful detective novelist who also solved murders encountered during her travels. Lansbury described
25921-419: Was wasting time in Hollywood and wanted to write a novel. Without Condon's knowledge, his boss, Max E. Youngstein , deducted money from his salary, then fired him after a year, returning the amount of money he had deducted in the form of a Mexican bank account and the key to a house overlooking the ocean in Mexico. Youngstein told him to write his book. His second novel, The Manchurian Candidate (1959), featured
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