NEW YORK, Jul. 7 – Anthony Shaw, the 26-year-old son of Angela Lansbury and husband-agent Peter Shaw, arrived in New York for a reunion with his parents and his 24-year-old sister Deidre. And a joyous reunion it will be.

“I sometimes find it hard to believe we lived through the nightmare, that Tony overcame all his problems. And the fact he and Deidre are doing so splendidly now is well, it’s like a miracle, reports Angela.

The nightmare began when Tony and Deidre became caught up in the Southern California drug culture of the 60’s. It ended only after Angela gave up her career in 1971 and moved with her children to Ireland, “to give them a fresh start away from destructive peer pressure.”

The family had been living in Malibu, that affluent seaside community some 30 minutes from Hollywood, “where the atmosphere was totally devoid of culture, where young people were only interested in rock, surfing and pot.. Where they depended upon each other for kicks – and in their case, the kicks were narcotics.”

By age 17, Tony was to have reportedly graduated from pot and LSD to heroin. And, reveals his mother, “his two closest friends ended up dying of overdoses. It was a terrible scene. Charles Manson and his followers were always hanging around and, yes, Deidre got to know them.”

The lady who is now back in the limelight as the star of Broadway’s hit “Sweeney Todd” (she’ll also be starting as detective Jane Marples in a 1980 film translation of an Agatha Christie work), resumed her career with a tour of “Gypsy” in 1974 — when she was sure her children’s live were once again on a straight course. But she tells me now, “That period in our lives wasn’t easy. It took the children a long time to mend their fences.”

Tony’s fence-mending process eventually led him to London for acting lessons and a job as Keir Dullea’s understudy in a stage production of “Bus Stop.”

“Keir was ill one evening,” reports Ms. Lansbury, “Tony went on, an agent spotted him – and it seems he hasn’t stopped working since. There was a part in ‘A Bridge Too Far,’ in ‘The Spy Who Loved Me.’ He’s just completed ‘Esther, Ruth and Jennifer’ with Roger Moore in Ireland – and he’ll soon be making Warren Beatty’s ‘John Reed’ movie and a TV mini-series.”

Angela adds, “Deidre is busy studying acting in New York, and both she and Tony are happy and well-adjusted.”

It is, she repeats, “like a miracle.”

By MARILYN BECK