Murder, She Wrote (TV Series)

The Grand Old Lady (1989)

Angela Lansbury: Jessica Fletcher

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Jessica Fletcher : Oh, the weather's so beautiful. It should be a wonderful day. But it isn't. It was in the paper this morning. A wonderful person died a couple of days ago. She was very dear to me, even though I never actually met her. The paper said she was 101, though she could have been a lot older. Lady Austin was like that, an enigma shrouded in mystery, very much like the books that she wrote. Abigail Austin. When it came to mysteries, she was very simply the best. Her books will live on long after mine are gone and forgotten. You know, the obituary reminded me of something that I'd forgotten. Years ago, she was involved in a real-life mystery. Oh, yes. As you know, that's something that I'm familiar with. But for Lady Abigail, I think it was, well, a somewhat disconcerting situation. It was two years after the war, and she had sailed aboard the Queen Mary, which was one night out of New York City when the trouble started.

• [last lines] 

  Jessica Fletcher : To the best of my knowledge, the Major and his nurse got married and lived happily ever after. But the real ending belonged to Abigail Austin. She never realized that her solution to the murder was wrong. Even though he knew the truth, young Christy McGinn never wrote the story. He knew that it would break Lady Austin's spirit, as well as her heart. She went on to write another dozen books before she retired to her rose garden in Brighton. To those of us who came afterwards, she truly was a grand old lady.