How Angela Lansbury once saved her daughter from killer cult leader Charles Manson

She dealt with crime and no-good characters on a regular basis in her role as amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the hit TV series Murder, She Wrote – and Angela Lansbury had a brush with it too in real life.

The actress, who passed away this week aged 96, once revealed she had to relocate her family from America to Ireland to get her drug-addicted daughter out of the clutches of convicted murderer and cult leader Charles Manson.

In a 2014 interview with the Daily Mail, Angela explained how her daughter, Deidre (now 69), had fallen in with a bad crowd led by the musician-turned-mass murderer during the 1960s.

Angela is best known for playing shrewd mystery writer Jessica Fletcher in the TV series Murder, She Wrote, that ran during the mid 1980s and 90s. (PHOTO: Gallo Images/Getty Images)

“It started with cannabis but moved on to heroin. There were factions up in the hills above Malibu that were dedicated to deadly pursuits. It pains me to say it but, at one stage, Deidre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson.”

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Her daughter, she said, was one of many youngsters who were “fascinated” by Manson. He was finally arrested in July 1967 and jailed for life at California State Prison. He died on 19 November 2017 at the age of 83.

At the same time her son, Anthony (now 70), had also become addicted to cocaine and heroin. 

Angela and daughter Deirdre Angela Shaw at the Emmy Awards in Pasadena, California, in 1991. (PHOTO: Gallo Images/Getty Images)

A scene from the 2003 TV movie Helter Skelter about Charles Manson and his cult of young followers, which operated in the late 1960s. (PHOTO: Gallo Images/Getty Images)

She then made the decision to up and move her kids and husband, the late English actor Peter Shaw, from their home in Los Angeles to Ireland.

“I said to Peter, ‘We have to leave’,” she recalled. “I found a house in County Cork. I was drawn to Ireland because it was the birthplace of my mother and it was also somewhere my children wouldn't be exposed to any more bad influences.”

Her son went on to beat his addiction and became an actor and director who directed 68 episodes of Murder, She Wrote. Deirdre too recovered and married a chef, Enzo Battarra. Together they opened an Italian restaurant in West Los Angeles called Enzo & Angela, but it has since closed.

Angela, who died on 11 October, was a devoted granny to her three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Sources: dailymail.co.uk, hollywoodlife.com