Memorial Page for Maggie Smith (née Margaret Natalie Smith)

Maggie Smith (born 28 December 1934 in Ilford; died 27 September 2024 in London) was a British actress. For seven decades she worked on stage and screen. She won two Academy Awards, a Tony Award and four Emmys – and in the 21st century she gained new admirers as Professor McGonagall in the “Harry Potter” films and as Violet Crawley in “Downton Abbey”.

Growing up in Oxford

Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, the youngest of three children; her twin brothers Ian and Alistair, six years older, later became architects. In 1939 her father was posted to wartime duty in Oxford, and it was there that she grew up. She trained at the Oxford Playhouse School, made her stage debut in 1952 and worked in the thriving revue scene of the university town.

She took Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was already working in the theatre. Years later she summed up her own life in four short steps:

“One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one's still acting.”

With Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre

Laurence Olivier spotted her talent and invited her into the original company of his National Theatre. In its very first season, in 1963, she was on stage beside him at the Old Vic. At the National she played “Hedda Gabler”, among many others, and took part in the first performances of plays by John Osborne and Peter Shaffer that are now regarded as classics. After her death the theatre remembered her deep intelligence, her effortless dexterity and her sharp wit.

As Desdemona she was also Olivier's co-star in the film of “Othello”, which brought her a first Oscar nomination at the 1966 ceremony.

Two Oscars

Her breakthrough in film came as a charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher: for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” she won the Academy Award for Best Actress on 7 April 1970. The film was directed by Ronald Neame, and her then husband Robert Stephens played opposite her.

Nine years later, on 9 April 1979, she won Best Supporting Actress for “California Suite” – playing, of all things, an actress who travels from England to the Oscars because she herself has been nominated. Four further nominations followed: for “Othello”, as Best Actress for “Travels with My Aunt”, and for “A Room with a View” and “Gosford Park”.

Marriage and family

In 1967 she married the actor Robert Stephens. They had two sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, both of whom became actors too. The marriage ended in divorce in 1975, and that same year Maggie Smith married the playwright Beverley Cross. They remained married until his death in 1998.

The stage remained her home

Whatever her film work, she kept returning to the theatre. At a party she once asked the playwright Peter Shaffer why he kept writing plays about two men talking. He went home and wrote “Lettice and Lovage” specifically for her. The role won her the 1990 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in New York.

A new audience

In the 1990s she played the Mother Superior in “Sister Act”, and in 2001 the Countess Constance in Robert Altman's “Gosford Park”, alongside Michael Gambon and from a screenplay by Julian Fellowes.

As Professor Minerva McGonagall she appeared in seven of the eight “Harry Potter” films, and children recognised her in the street. Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry, credited her with helping him get the part; the two had worked together before in the BBC's “David Copperfield”.

Violet Crawley

From 2010 to 2015 she played the widowed Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in 70 episodes of “Downton Abbey”. Julian Fellowes, who created the series, said after her death:

“Maggie Smith was a truly great actress and we were more than fortunate to be part of the last act in her stellar career.”

The role won her Emmys in 2011, 2012 and 2016; she had already won a first Emmy in 2003, as lead actress in a miniseries or movie. She herself admitted that she had never watched the series. She returned to the part in the two cinema films of 2019 and 2022, the second being “Downton Abbey: A New Era”.

Later years and honours

She kept working well into her eighties. Alan Bennett wrote a starring role for her in “The Lady in the Van”. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knighthood, and was later appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour.

Farewell

Maggie Smith died peacefully early on the morning of 27 September 2024, aged 89, at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London. Her sons described her as an intensely private person who was with friends and family at the end; she left two sons and five grandchildren. The National Theatre, with which she had been connected since its very first season, called her one of the greatest actors the country had ever had the pleasure of seeing.