Veteran Hollywood actress and Murder She Wrote TV star, Angela Lansbury, has admitted Ireland was "the sanctuary" her family needed after a fire destroyed their Malibu home and her two children were threatened by the Californian drug culture.

Angela, 82 -- who now lives outside Ballycotton in County Cork -- admitted that Ireland offered her entire family a new life three decades ago.

She admitted that some of her happiest years were spent in Ireland with her late husband, Peter, and children Deirdre and Anthony.

Anthony is now a top US television producer while Deirdre runs an award-winning restaurant with her husband.

"We really needed to get away from California and the drug life and all of that," she explained.

"We had our problems, there's no question about it so coming to Ireland was like beginning all over again and it afforded us that time to get back to basics really. We bought a house down in Cork and we gardened and I learnt to cook, really cook for the first time and used all the produce from the garden and so on. We started a whole new life," she added.

Three times nominated for an Academy Award, she has won four Tony Awards, six Golden Globes and a stunning 18 Emmy honours.

While she is best known for her role as Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote, Lansbury appeared in a series of major films from the 1940s to the 1960s, including Samson and Delilah, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Manchurian Candidate.

Angela Lansbury was one of the first stars to chose Cork as 'a home away from home'. Over the years, she was joined by Sir David Puttnam, the late Oliver Reed, Michael Flatley, Jeremy Irons, Roy Disney and Hurd Hatfield -- whose decision to relocate to Ireland was largely taken because of his deep friendship with Angela, who he met on the set of The Picture of Dorian Gray, in 1945.

Angela already had strong family ties to Ireland, with her mother and grandmother both born in Belfast.

"My grandmother, who came from Belfast, used to come to Cork every winter because it was warmer down here," Angela told NewsTalk radio.

"One of the reasons I thought (of Cork) was that, if we're going to live in Ireland, we want to try and live in a climate that is a little less difficult and sharp and cold, such as the north or Dublin, which is a good deal colder than Cork," she explained.

Angela's late husband, Peter Shaw, shared her love for Ireland almost from the instant the family arrived in 1970.

"My husband was British, he came from London, and it was very easy for him to fall into the Irish way.

"We loved living here and we never were able to give it up," she said.

"We sold that house, but we had to come back, which we did 10 years later. We bought a piece of land and built a new house . . . we did that in 1992 and I've had that ever since," she said.

Part of her love for Ireland is the way her privacy is respected -- and the warmth shown to her family by the local community.

In the US, her role in Murder She Wrote is so famous that she is regularly mobbed by fans whenever she goes out in public.

"I can't put my nose out the door that people don't recognise Jessica Fletcher so I have no real private life at all," she said.

"The only place I'm really at ease is Los Angeles where people don't watch Murder She Wrote."