Maggie Smith

Maggie Smith (born December 28, 1934, Ilford, Essex, England—died September 27, 2024, London) was an English stage and motion-picture actress noted for her poignancy and wit in comic roles.

Smith studied acting at the Oxford Playhouse School and began appearing in revues in Oxford in 1952 and London in 1955. She first achieved recognition in the Broadway revue New Faces of 1956 and held the lead comedian role in the London revue Share My Lettuce (1957–58). She then began appearing regularly in plays at the Old Vic theater in London. Her work in Jean Anouilh’s The Rehearsal (1961), Peter Shaffer’s linked comedies The Private Ear and The Public Eye (1962), and Jean Kerr’s Mary, Mary (1963) solidified her reputation. In 1963 Smith joined Britain’s National Theatre company, and the following year she played Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier’s Othello. She repeated that role in Olivier’s motion-picture version of Othello in 1965 and further appeared with the National Theatre in such roles as Silvia in George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer (1963).

Smith had made her screen debut in 1958 in Nowhere to Go, but she only achieved international fame with her performance in the title role of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), for which she received an Academy Award for best actress. Her subsequent stage appearances with the National Theatre included roles in William Wycherley’s The Country-Wife (1969), Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem (1970), and Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (1970). Smith left the National Theatre in the early 1970s and appeared for several seasons at the Stratford (Ontario) Festival. She also played in both the London and New York City productions of Noël Coward’s Private Lives (1972, 1975) and of Tom Stoppard’s Night and Day (1979).

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In 1978 Smith starred in California Suite, a film adaptation of Neil Simon’s Broadway play. Her performance as an Oscar-nominated actress who bickers with her husband (played by Michael Caine) earned her a real-life Academy Award for best supporting actress. Smith also received Oscar nominations for her roles as a chaperone to a young woman traveling in Italy in A Room with a View (1985) and as a countess in Gosford Park (2001).

Smith’s subsequent films included The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987), a drama in which she played the title role; the comedy Sister Act (1992), which starred Whoopi Goldberg; The Secret Garden (1993), an adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel; Ladies in Lavender (2004), with Judi Dench; and Becoming Jane (2007), which imagines the early life of author Jane Austen. She later enlivened the ensemble comedies The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) and its 2015 sequel, about a group of British retirees in India, as well as Quartet (2012), which centred on four aging opera singers. Also in the early 21st century Smith played Professor Minerva McGonagall in the film adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s popular Harry Potter series, and she provided a voice for the animated Shakespeare spoof Gnomeo & Juliet (2011) and its sequel, Sherlock Gnomes (2018). Her talent for delivering barbed dialogue was highlighted in the comedy My Old Lady (2014), in which she depicted the tenant of a Parisian apartment inherited by an American man.

Smith continued to act onstage in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Notable credits included West End productions of William Congreve’s The Way of the World (1984), Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage (1987), and Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women (1994); for a subsequent Broadway production of Lettice and Lovage, she won a Tony Award in 1990. In 1999 she appeared as the title character in Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van at the Queen’s Theatre and later reprised the role in a 2015 film version.

Smith occasionally appeared on television. After starring in such TV movies as David Copperfield (1999) and My House in Umbria (2003), the latter of which earned her an Emmy Award, she took on a role in the British series Downton Abbey (2010–15), a period drama centring on the Crawleys, an aristocratic family, and their servants. For her performance as Violet, dowager countess of Grantham, Smith won three Emmys (2011, 2012, and 2016). She reprised the role for two feature-length films (2019 and 2022).

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Smith was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1990 and was named a Companion of Honour (CH) in 2014.