Angela Lansbury once uprooted her whole family to Ireland in order to save her daughter Deidre from the clutches of Charles Manson's cult.
The actress, who sadly passed away yesterday aged 96, has spoken about how she moved her family from their home in Los Angeles to rural Cork to get away from the California drug scene of the 1960s.
Her son Anthony had become addicted to drugs and daughter Deidre, who was just a teenager at the time, had also started using drugs and became swept up with a crowd led by the mass murderer Charles Manson.
READ MORE: Angela Lansbury's marriages: Heartbreak after gay husband left to finding her true love
The family bought Knockmourne Glebe in 1970, an old rectory near the village of Conna, a rural part of Cork, which became their home for many years.
"It started with cannabis but moved to heroin," the mum-of-two said.
"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," Angela said in a 2014 interview with DailyMail.
Like some of Manson's followers, Deidre, now 69, was said to have been drawn in by the cult leader's charm.
Angela said: "She was one of many youngsters who knew him - and they were fascinated. He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it."
Charles Manson was convicted in 1971 of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for seven killings committed by his followers in 1969.
Fearing what might happen to her daughter if they stayed in America, Angela told her husband Peter Shaw that they had to leave.
Born in 1925 to an Irish mother - actress Moyna Macgill from Belfast - Angela said she was drawn to her mother's homeland their new home in Cork provided them with a sanctuary that potentially saved the lives of both her children.
"I have no doubt we would have lost one or both of our two if they hadn't been removed to a completely different milieu, the simplicity of life in Ireland," she said.
She continued: "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."
The Murder, She Wrote star turned down job offers for a year to care for Anthony and Deidre while they were recovering from their drug addiction in their rural Cork home.
She said Anthony escaped his bad habits "quite quickly" and after a little while Deidre did the same, getting married and relocating to Los Angeles where she and her husband opened an Italian restaurant.
The family later sold the house in Conna but returned to Ireland again in 1992. They bought a piece of land in near Ballycotton in east Cork where they built a house which Angela visited almost every year until her death.
Angela's family announced on Tuesday the actress died peacefully at her home in Los Angeles at the age of 96.
"The children of Dame Angela Lansbury are sad to announce that their mother died peacefully in her sleep at home in Los Angeles at 1:30 a.m. today, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, just five days shy of her 97th birthday," they said in a statement.
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