Career: While working in a department store in LA, Lansbury met a casting director through her mother. He offered her a role in the 1944 film Gaslight; she was just 18, but it landed her an Oscar nomination. Roles in National Velvet, Blue Hawaii and Bedknobs and Broomsticks followed. She gained further Academy Award nominations for The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Manchurian Candidate. She's also worked extensively on stage, winning a record five Tony Awards. But it was playing Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series Murder, She Wrote, that turned her into a household name. More recently, Lansbury has appeared in Nanny McPhee and Mr Popper's Penguins.

Career: Flanagan's acting breakthrough in Ireland was in the Irish language play An Triail. She made her Broadway debut in 1968 in Brian Friel's Lovers. Flanagan is known for her interpretations of works by the author James Joyce, having played Gerty McDowell in the film version of Ulysses (1967), all six main female roles in the film adaptation of James Joyce's Women (1985) and theatrical productions of Ulysses in Nighttown and Women. Flanagan has appeared on many American TV shows and TV films, including The Ewok Adventure (1984), How the West Was Won, Murder, She Wrote and Rich Man, Poor Man. She has made a number of big screen appearances, including in The Others (2001), Four Brothers (2005), Transamerica (2005), Yes Man (2008) and The Invention of Lying (2009). Between 2006 and 2008, she played Rose Caffee in the American TV drama Brotherhood. More recently, she appeared in the spin-off of EastEnders, Redwater.