Have you ever asked your mom what her dream career was? Usually, their faces light up when talking about the aspirations they had as young children or in their early twenties. Some of them worked hard to achieve their dream lives, and others found success in another area. Sometimes, we find ourselves influenced by our parents' professions and want to follow in their footsteps.

For Angela Lansbury, her mother's influence was profound. Together, they practiced lines, and this early exposure to the world of acting would shape Lansbury's future career, leading her to change how television viewed women over forty with Murder, She Wrote.

"My mother wanted to pick up eventually her career. And when we first arrived, we used to do readings together. We'd do Shakespeare," the actress told NPR in a 2022 interview. She and her family moved to the United States in the 1940s. Lansbury and her mom went to various schools around New York for acting gigs.

"We would do scenes from 'Romeo And Juliet' and she would do scenes as Desdemona. She also wrote epic poems by Alice Duer Miller and various other writers who were writing epic poems about the war at that time. And she was very, very good at it."

Like her mother, Lansbury was also discovering her talent for acting. The actress found immense joy and fulfillment in delivering her lines.

"She was a great recitalist, as they used to call them in Victorian days - or Edwardian days, I should say. And so I would go along with her in some instances, and many times she went alone. But that was the beginning of her career in the States and mine, too."