DS Icon: Angela Lansbury

This week's Icon is one of the oldest troopers in showbiz. Angela Lansbury has been entertaining TV, theatre and movie audiences since the 1940s, most notably in Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Beauty and the Beast, and the 1962 classic The Manchurian Candidate. Quite bizarrely, she has looked the same age - approximately 97 - in every stage of her career. However, among her glittering and extensive life, one particular role has dominated/plagued/shined brightest. The show? Murder, She Wrote. The role? Jessica Fletcher.

The sleuth drama is the longest-running TV murder mystery series and it still endures today with slacker students revelling in the predictable plot twists, hammy acting and ever-present and delightful Lansbury as the curious and fearless Fletcher. George Clooney, Courtney Cox and Joaquin Phoenix cut their teeth with Lansbury on the show, which followed a gloriously simple formula from the plinky-plonky piano theme tune onwards. Innocent person is arrested for murder (usually a distant niece/nephew of Jessica) and the amateur detective has to prove their innocence and unveil the 'celebrity guest star' as the villain. However, it was Lansbury, who with her dignity and class, that really made She Wrote a TV series to savour.

Click along our gallery below to see Angela Lansbury's career in pictures.