Maggie Smith

1934-2024

Latest News: Dame Maggie Smith Dies at Age 89

Acclaimed actor Maggie Smith died on September 27 at a London hospital, according to a statement from her sons, Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin. She was 89. “An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end,” the statement read.

Private as she was about her personal life, Smith never shied from her work as an actor. She regularly appeared on the stage, in movies, and in TV shows from the 1950s until just last year when she starred in The Miracle Club , a film with Kathy Bates and Laura Linney. Her illustrious career resulted in two Oscars, four Emmys, a Tony, seven BAFTA Awards, and a British knighthood.

Dame Maggie Smith led a distinguished, varied career on stage, in film, and in television over six decades. Her achievements range from starring as Desdemona in Othello opposite Laurence Olivier in the 1960s, to winning an Academy Award for her performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, to memorable roles in the acclaimed television series Downton Abbey and the popular Harry Potter movies. She died in September 2024 at age 89.

FULL NAME: Margaret Natalie Smith
BORN: December 28, 1934
DIED: September 27, 2024
BIRTHPLACE: Ilford, England
SPOUSES: Robert Stephens (1967-1974) and Beverley Cross (1975-1990)
CHILDREN: Toby and Chris
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Capricorn

Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith on December 28, 1934, in Ilford, England, just outside of London. Her parents were Margaret and Nathaniel Smith.

When Maggie was 4 years old, her family moved to Oxford, where her father worked as a pathologist at Oxford University. Maggie studied at the all-girls Oxford High School until the 16-year-old left to attend the Oxford Playhouse School from 1951 to 1953. She made her professional stage debut in 1952, playing Viola in an Oxford University Dramatics Society production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

After a brief detour to New York’s Broadway, where she performed in the comedy revue New Faces of 1956, Smith also began to act in movies. Her first role was a short, uncredited appearance in Child in the House (1956) followed by a larger part in the crime drama Nowhere to Go (1959).

In the 1960s, Smith was active in the National Theatre of Great Britain. She played Desdemona to Laurence Olivier’s Othello in 1964; the two of them reprised their roles in a film version of Othello the following year. While at the National Theatre, she acted in classic dramas by major authors such as Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov.

Smith received two Academy Awards throughout her career. Her first Oscar arrived in 1970. She received the Best Actress trophy for her portrayal of an idealistic, unorthodox schoolteacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). Nine years later, Smith won Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Neil Simon’s California Suite (1978).

The actor also received British Academy Film Awards for her work, including for her roles in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1984’s A Private Function, 1985’s A Room with a View, and 1987’s The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. Among the accolades for her stage performances were a Variety Club Award for her performance in Noël Coward’s Private Lives in 1972 and a Tony Award for Lettice and Lovage in 1990.

Throughout the 1990s, Smith acted in a diverse range of projects, from the 1993 comedy Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit with Whoopi Goldberg to the 1997 literary adaptation Washington Square and the 1999 ensemble drama Tea with Mussolini. Her appearance as a snobbish aristocrat in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (2001) received especially positive notice.

Smith captured the attention of a new generation when she played the strict witchcraft teacher Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001). The movie was a huge hit, and Smith reprised the role for six of the seven Harry Potter sequels.

Beginning in 2010, Smith earned acclaim for her performance as the grandly irrepressible Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the period drama Downton Abbey. She received three Emmy Awards for the role in 2011, 2012, and 2016.

The esteemed and busy actor also continued her prolific movie career. In 2012, she joined the ensemble cast of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and was featured in the Dustin Hoffman–directed film Quartet. In 2015, she returned for The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and starred in the comedy-drama The Lady in the Van, for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination.

Smith was married twice. Her first marriage, to actor Robert Stephens in 1967, ended in divorce in 1974. Her two sons with Stephens, Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, are both actors. In 1975, Smith married writer Beverley Cross, who died of cancer in 1998.

Smith was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990.

In 2008, Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent intensive treatment that included chemotherapy sessions which coincided with the filming schedule for Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince.

• It’s true I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am spiky. Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.
• I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost—it’s there and then it’s gone.

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