Angela Lansbury is staying active at age 90, but she is an actress -- not a homicide detective. We have to admire the creativity of the writers at Waterford Whispers News for publishing a satire about Lansbury that Lead Stories' Trendolizer detected as trending on social networks. But we are baffled that some, if not many, readers don't realize it was produced as a joke.
First clue: The website has a declaimer that reads "Waterford Whispers News is a fabricated satirical newspaper and comedy website published by Waterford Whispers News. Waterford Whispers News uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental."
But who bothers to read the fine print. And some of what the story says is true!
"VETERAN British actress and honorary Irish citizen Angela Lansbury has been approached by An Garda Síochána and has agreed to use the skills she learned on 'Murder, She Wrote' to help solve the recent spate of murders in Dublin."
That is the untrue part.
"Lansbury, 90, was in Dublin yesterday to collect a lifetime achievement award at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival."
This is the true part. Watch this video from the festival in which Lansbury talks about it.
"It is believed that she left the event and went straight to the Regency Hotel, to see if she could find any clues that would help investigations into the murder of a gang member murdered at a boxing weigh-in event a fortnight ago."
Again, this is not true.
"Bringing back the investigative powers she used playing amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher for nearly 20 years, Lansbury visited the scene where a second man with connections to the Dublin drug trade was gunned down, while a senior member of the guards shook his head and told her she was wasting her time."
Not true, but fun to imagine.
Detective dramas, including Lansbury's "Murder, She Wrote," are fictional stories written in Hollywood. Producers hire actors, such as Lansbury, to pretend like they are real detectives with remarkable investigative skills. Irish investigators would be better off bringing in the writers, not the actor.
