Names and faces

Hollywood star Angela Lansbury, best-known as the clue-collecting super sleuth on the television series Murder, She Wrote, has been made a dame of the British Empire. The 88-year-old actress was one of more than 1,000 people who were recognized by Queen Elizabeth II in the New Year’s Honors List. For the first time since the Order of the British Empire was founded in 1917, most of them were women. Actress Penelope Keith, known to Brits as the snobbish Margot Leadbetter in the 1970s sitcom The Good Life, was also made a dame. Dr. Marcus Setchell, the queen’s gynecologist who oversaw the safe delivery of her great-grandson Prince George, was made a knight. The twice-yearly royal honors reward hundreds of people for services to their community or national life.

A former Sopranos actor convicted for his real-life role in the slaying of an off-duty police officer during a botched break-in at a Bronx, N.Y., home was released from prison Tuesday on parole. Lillo Brancato Jr. was freed after serving time for a 2008 burglary conviction. At the same trial, he was acquitted on a second-degree murder count that carried a possible sentence of 25 years to life. Brancato was sentenced to 10 years in prison in January 2009. Atthe time, he had already served three years in jail while awaiting trial and was eligible for a conditional release in July 2014. He earned an earlier release by taking college courses and meeting disciplinary standards, officials said. He was ordered to report to his parole officer in suburban Westchester County, N.Y., where he will live and remain under supervision until the end of 2018, they added. Brancato, 37, was freed over the objections of police-union officials who insisted he should have been convicted of murder. Brancato was an unknown when he got his big break starring opposite Robert De Niro in the 1993 film A Bronx Tale. He later landed smaller film and television roles, most memorably in The Sopranos playing a bumbling, wannabe mobster who is killed by Tony Soprano. Brancato must seek employment, submit to drug tests and enter a treatment program as conditions of his parole.