MAGGIE SMITH (1938 - 2024)
Best known as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter franchise and Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham in the hit drama Downton Abbey, Dame Maggie Smith has sadly died at the age of 89.
Making her acting debut in 1952 in the theatre, Smith won her first Oscar as a non-conformist teacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978, Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “A Room with a View,” and BAFTAs for lead actress in “A Private Function” in 1984, “A Room with a View” in 1986 and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1988.
She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in “Othello,” “A Room with a View” and “Gosford Park,” and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in “Tea with Mussolini.” On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for “Lettice and Lovage.”
In 1990 she was created DBE and a year later, appeared as the ageing Wendy in Hook, Stephen Spielberg's sequel to Peter Pan. Other films followed including Sister Act, alongside Whoopi Goldberg, and The Secret Garden for which she was nominated for a Bafta. "It's true I don't tolerate fools, but then they don't tolerate me, so I am spiky," she once said. "Maybe that's why I'm quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies."
Dame Maggie Smith will definitely be missed.
A selection of Smith's past works:
A BOY CALLED CHRISTMAS (2021)
THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (2015)
QUARTET (2013)
THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (2012)
NANNY McPHEE & THE BIG BANG (2010)
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART TWO (2011)
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE (2009)
