There Is Nothing Like a Dame Angela

Actress Angela Lansbury, best known on these shores as novelist and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote, will be names a Dame of the British Empire according to the New Year's honors list, published in London today.

Lansbury, 88, is already a CBE, or Commander of the British Empire, which we're pretty sure gives one the ability to communicate with sea creatures. Not sure what'll happen when Mrs. Angela Brigid Lansbury Shaw receives a damehood for services to drama and to charitable work and philanthropy, but it'll be good. And it'll probably involve an orb and scepter.

The British-born Lansbury has her roots in London's East End, but she's appeared in countless stage, TV shows, and films, including Sweeney Todd, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, The Manchurian Candidate, and with Elvis Presley in Blue Hawaii.

The honorees are those selected for their contributions to reward ordinary blokes for their good deeds and achievements, but Queen Elizabeth II hands out the honors at Buckingham Palace. This year, for the first time ever, more women than men will be honored.

Here's Dame Angela, with Joan Collins, and Dana Wynter, in a 1959 telecast of the Oscars.