Maggie Smith - # 332

Maggie Smith, star of stage, film and ‘Downton Abbey,’ has died at 89

 

She was number 332 on the list.

LONDON — Maggie Smith, who won an Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” has died, her publicist said Friday. She was 89.

She was frequently rated the preeminent British actress of a generation which included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench.

“Jean Brodie” brought her the Academy Award for best actress and the British Academy (BAFTA) award as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978.

Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital.

“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs.

Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies.

She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that “when you get into the granny era, you’re lucky to get anything.”

Smith drily summarized her later roles as “a gallery of grotesques,” including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: “Harry Potter is my pension.”

Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of “Suddenly Last Summer,” said she was “intellectually the smartest actress I’ve ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith.”

“Jean Brodie,” in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969.

Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978, Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “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,” “Travels with My Aunt,” “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.”

Her work in 2012 netted three Golden Globe nominations for the globally successful “Downton Abbey” TV series and the films “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and “Quartet.”

Smith had a reputation for being difficult, and sometimes upstaging others.

Richard Burton remarked that Smith didn’t just take over a scene in “The VIPs” with him: “She commits grand larceny.” However, the director Peter Hall found that Smith wasn’t “remotely difficult unless she’s among idiots. She’s very hard on herself, and I don’t think she sees any reason why she shouldn’t be hard on other people, too.”

Smith conceded that she could be impatient at times.

“It’s true I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am spiky,” Smith said. “Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.”

Critic Frank Rich, in a New York Times review of “Lettice and Lovage,” praised Smith as “the stylized classicist who can italicize a line as prosaic as ‘Have you no marmalade?’ until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram by Coward or Wilde.”

Smith famously drew laughs from a prosaic line — “This haddock is disgusting” — in a 1964 revival of Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever.”

“But unfortunately the critics mentioned it, and after that it never got a laugh,” she recalled. “The moment you say something is funny it’s gossamer. It’s gone, really.”

Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, on Dec. 28, 1934. She summed up her life briefly: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one’s still acting.”

Her father was assigned in 1939 to wartime duty in Oxford, where her theater studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy apprenticeship.

“I did so many things, you know, round the universities there. ... If you were kind of clever enough and I suppose quick enough, you could almost do weekly rep because all the colleges were doing different productions at different times,” she said in a BBC interview.

She took Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was active in the theater.

Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of “Othello.”

Smith said two directors, Ingmar Bergman and William Gaskill, both in National Theatre productions, were important influences.

Alan Bennett, preparing to film the monologue “A Bed Among the Lentils,” said he was wary of Smith’s reputation for becoming bored. As the actor Jeremy Brett put it, “she starts divinely and then goes off, rather like a cheese.”

“So the fact that we only just had enough time to do it was an absolute blessing really because she was so fresh and just so into it,” said Bennett, who also wrote a starring role for Smith in “The Lady in the Van.”

However extravagant she may have been on stage or before the cameras, Smith was known to be intensely private.

Simon Callow, who acted with her in “A Room with a View,” said he ruined their first meeting by spouting compliments.

“I blurted out various kinds of rubbish about her and she kind of withdrew. She doesn’t like that sort of thing very much at all,” Callow said in a film portrait of the actress. “She never wanted to talk about acting. Acting was something she was terrified to talk about because if she did, it would disappear.”

Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knight, in 1990.

She married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, Christopher and Toby, and divorced in 1975. The same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998.

 

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Elizabeth McGovern, Maggie Smith, Imelda Staunton, Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Raquel Cassidy, Brendan Coyle, Hugh Dancy, Kevin Doyle, Joanne Froggatt, Phyllis Logan, Lesley Nicol, Douglas Reith, Dominic West, Penelope Wilton, Allen Leech, Robert James-Collier, Michelle Dockery, Harry Hadden-Paton, Laura Haddock, Sophie McShera, Tuppence Middleton, Laura Carmichael, and Michael Fox in Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)

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7.4

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2022

 

Jim Broadbent, Maggie Smith, Michiel Huisman, Toby Jones, Philip Lenkowsky, Rishi Kuppa, Sally Hawkins, Kristen Wiig, Joel Fry, Zoe Colletti, and Henry Lawfull in A Boy Called Christmas (2021)

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6.7

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2021

 

Elizabeth McGovern, Maggie Smith, Imelda Staunton, Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Raquel Cassidy, Brendan Coyle, Kevin Doyle, Joanne Froggatt, Matthew Goode, Phyllis Logan, Lesley Nicol, Penelope Wilton, Allen Leech, Robert James-Collier, Michelle Dockery, Harry Hadden-Paton, Sophie McShera, Tuppence Middleton, Laura Carmichael, and Michael Fox in Downton Abbey (2019)

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7.4

Violet Crawley

2019

 

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery (2018)

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

6.1

Video Game

Professor Minerva McGonagall (voice)

2018

 

Johnny Depp, Mary J. Blige, Ozzy Osbourne, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ashley Jensen, Matt Lucas, James McAvoy, Stephen Merchant, Emily Blunt, Julio Bonet, and Eve Webster in Sherlock Gnomes (2018)

Sherlock Gnomes

5.2

Lady Bluebury (voice)

2018

 

Elizabeth McGovern, Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville, Brendan Coyle, Joanne Froggatt, Penelope Wilton, Allen Leech, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Lily James, Fifi Hart, and Oliver Barker in Downton Abbey (2010)

Downton Abbey

8.7

TV Series

Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham

2010–2015

52 episodes

 

Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings in The Lady in the Van (2015)

The Lady in the Van

6.7

Miss Shepherd

2015

 

Richard Gere, David Strathairn, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Dev Patel, and Tina Desai in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

6.5

Muriel Donnelly

2015

 

Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Maggie Smith in My Old Lady (2014)

My Old Lady

6.4

Mathilde Girard

2014

 

Maggie Smith, Pauline Collins, Billy Connolly, and Tom Courtenay in Quartet (2012)

Quartet

6.8

Jean Horton

2012

 

Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, and Dev Patel in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

7.2

Muriel Donnelly

2011

 

Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe, and Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

8.1

Professor Minerva McGonagall

2011

 

Matt Lucas in Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)

Gnomeo & Juliet

5.9

Lady Bluebury (voice)

2011

 

Emma Thompson in Nanny McPhee Returns (2010)

Nanny McPhee Returns

6.1

Mrs Docherty

2010

 

From Time to Time (2009)

From Time to Time

6.7

Mrs Oldknow

2009

 

Michael Gambon, Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe, and Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

7.6

Professor Minerva McGonagall

2009

 

Capturing Mary (2007)

Capturing Mary

6.7

TV Movie

Mary Gilbert

2007

 

Rupert Grint, Matthew Lewis, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, and Evanna Lynch in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

7.5

Minerva McGonagall

2007

 

Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy in Becoming Jane (2007)

Becoming Jane

7.0

Lady Gresham

2007

 

Keeping Mum: Funnies (2006)

Keeping Mum: Funnies

6.9

Video

Grace Hawkins

2006

 

Keeping Mum: Deleted Scenes (2006)

Keeping Mum: Deleted Scenes

6.8

Video

Grace Hawkins

2006

 

Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Patrick Swayze, and Maggie Smith in Keeping Mum (2005)

Keeping Mum

6.8

Grace Hawkins

2005

 

Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Clémence Poésy, Robert Pattinson, and Stanislav Yanevski in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

7.7

Minerva McGonagall

2005

 

Judi Dench, Natascha McElhone, Maggie Smith, and Daniel Brühl in Ladies in Lavender (2004)

Ladies in Lavender

7.0

Janet

2004

 

Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe, and Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

7.9

Professor Minerva McGonagall

2004

 

Maggie Smith in My House in Umbria (2003)

My House in Umbria

6.9

TV Movie

Mrs. Delahunty

2003

 

Rupert Grint, Toby Jones, Daniel Radcliffe, and Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

7.4

Professor McGonagall (as Dame Maggie Smith)

2002

 

Promo Poster

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

6.1

Caro

2002

 

Gosford Park (2001)

Gosford Park

7.2

Constance Trentham

2001

 

Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Richard Harris, Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe, and Emma Watson in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

7.6

Professor McGonagall

2001

 

David Copperfield (1999)

David Copperfield

7.6

TV Mini Series

Betsey Trotwood

1999

2 episodes

 

David Jason in All the King's Men (1999)

All the King's Men

7.1

TV Movie

Queen Alexandra

1999

 

Jane Birkin, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Keeley Hawes, Fiona Shaw, and Lambert Wilson in The Last September (1999)

The Last September

6.0

Lady Myra

1999

 

Cher, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Lily Tomlin, and Joan Plowright in Tea with Mussolini (1999)

Tea with Mussolini

6.9

Lady Hester

1999

 

It All Came True (1998)

It All Came True

5.7

Lily Marlowe

1998

 

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Ben Chaplin in Washington Square (1997)

Washington Square

6.6

Aunt Lavinia Penniman

1997

 

Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, and Bette Midler in The First Wives Club (1996)

The First Wives Club

6.4

Gunilla Garson Goldberg

1996

 

Robert Downey Jr., Annette Bening, and Ian McKellen in Richard III (1995)

Richard III

7.3

Duchess of York

1995

 

Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993)

Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

5.7

Mother Superior

1993

 

Andrew Knott, Kate Maberly, and Heydon Prowse in The Secret Garden (1993)

The Secret Garden

7.3

Mrs. Medlock

1993

 

Great Performances (1971)

Great Performances

7.9

TV Series

Violet Venable

1993

1 episode

 

Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act (1992)

Sister Act

6.5

Mother Superior

1992

 

Screen Two (1984)

Screen Two

6.3

TV Series

Mrs. Mabel Pettigrew

1992

1 episode

 

Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Robin Williams, Bob Hoskins, Dante Basco, David Crosby, Robert Amico, Jasen Fisher, Stephanie Furst, Raushan Hammond, James Madio, Regina Russell Banali, Alex Zuckerman, and Paul Babb in Hook (1991)

Hook

6.8

Granny Wendy

1991

 

Romeo.Juliet (1990)

Romeo.Juliet

7.4

Rosaline (voice)

1990

 

Talking Heads (1988)

Talking Heads

8.6

TV Mini Series

Susan

1988

1 episode

 

Bob Hoskins and Maggie Smith in The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987)

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

7.0

Judith Hearne

1987

 

Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands in A Room with a View (1985)

A Room with a View

7.2

Charlotte Bartlett, a Chaperon

1985

 

Denholm Elliott, Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, and Richard Griffiths in A Private Function (1984)

A Private Function

6.5

Joyce Chilvers

1984

 

Lily in Love (1984)

Lily in Love

5.7

Lily Wynn

1984

 

Jean Simmons and Ian Carmichael in All for Love (1982)

All for Love

7.7

TV Series

Mrs. Silly

1983

1 episode

 

David Niven, Art Carney, and Catherine Hicks in Better Late Than Never (1983)

Better Late Than Never

5.5

Miss Anderson

1983

 

The Missionary (1982)

The Missionary

6.2

Lady Isabel Ames

1982

 

James Mason, Jane Birkin, Roddy McDowall, Diana Rigg, Maggie Smith, Peter Ustinov, Colin Blakely, Nicholas Clay, Sylvia Miles, and Denis Quilley in Evil Under the Sun (1982)

Evil Under the Sun

7.0

Daphne Castle

1982

 

Harry Hamlin and Judi Bowker in Clash of the Titans (1981)

Clash of the Titans

6.9

Thetis

1981

 

Isabelle Adjani, Alan Bates, Maggie Smith, and Anthony Higgins in Quartet (1981)

Quartet

6.2

Lois

H.J.'s Wife

1981

 

Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, Walter Matthau, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Maggie Smith, and Elaine May in California Suite (1978)

California Suite

6.2

Diana Barrie

1978

 

Death on the Nile (1978)

Death on the Nile

7.3

Miss Bowers

1978

 

Murder by Death (1976)

Murder by Death

7.3

Dora Charleston

1976

 

Timothy Bottoms and Maggie Smith in Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973)

Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing

6.6

Lila Fisher

1973

 

Travels with My Aunt (1972)

Travels with My Aunt

6.3

Aunt Augusta

1972

 

BBC Play of the Month (1965)

BBC Play of the Month

6.8

TV Series

Epifania

Portia

Ann Whitefield

1968–1972

3 episodes

 

Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)

Oh! What a Lovely War

7.0

Music Hall Star

1969

 

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

7.6

Jean Brodie

1969

 

Hot Millions (1968)

Hot Millions

6.8

Patty Terwilliger Smith

1968

 

ITV Playhouse (1967)

ITV Playhouse

6.9

TV Series

Mrs. Wislack

1968

1 episode

 

Much Ado About Nothing

7.2

TV Movie

Beatrice

1967

 

The Honey Pot (1967)

The Honey Pot

6.7

Sarah Watkins

1967

 

ITV Play of the Week (1955)

ITV Play of the Week

6.9

TV Series

Victoria

Jackie Coryton

Lois Ardsley ...

1957–1966

6 episodes

 

Othello (1965)

Othello

7.0

Desdemona

1965

 

Young Cassidy (1965)

Young Cassidy

6.5

Nora

1965

 

Anne Bancroft in The Pumpkin Eater (1964)

The Pumpkin Eater

7.1

Philpot

1964

 

Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Louis Jourdan in The V.I.P.s (1963)

The V.I.P.s

6.3

Miss Mead

1963

 

Go to Blazes (1962)

Go to Blazes

5.9

Chantal

1962

 

ITV Television Playhouse (1955)

ITV Television Playhouse

7.8

TV Series

Rose

Penelope

Doto (Maid) ...

1959–1961

4 episodes

 

Armchair Theatre (1956)

Armchair Theatre

7.6

TV Series

Anna Carnot

The Girl

Juliet Denise

1958–1960

3 episodes

 

Maggie Smith and George Nader in Nowhere to Go (1958)

Nowhere to Go

6.8

Bridget Howard

1958

 

On Stage - London

TV Series

1957

1 episode

 

Sing for Your Supper

TV Movie

Ann Carter

1957

 

Kraft Theatre (1947)

Kraft Theatre

8.0

TV Series

1957

1 episode

 

Aggie (1956)

Aggie

7.7

TV Series

Fiona Frobisher-Smith

1956

1 episode

 

A 1956 Golden Era Film for Eros Films, this was another tear-jerker for child star Mandy Miller to strut her stuff after the box office success "Mandy." 

Child in the House

6.1

Party Guest (uncredited)

1956

 

Lilli Palmer Theatre (1955)

Lilli Palmer Theatre

9.0

TV Series

Paula Benson

1956

1 episode

 

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950)

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre

7.6

TV Series

1955

1 episode

 

Soundtrack

Denholm Elliott, Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, and Richard Griffiths in A Private Function (1984)

A Private Function

6.5

performer: "Rose of England"

1984

 

Timothy Bottoms and Maggie Smith in Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973)

Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing

6.6

Soundtrack ("How Beautifully Blue the Sky", "All Things Bright and Beautiful")

1973

 

Travels with My Aunt (1972)

Travels with My Aunt

6.3

performer: "The Church's One Foundation" (uncredited)

1972

 

Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)

Oh! What a Lovely War

7.0

performer: "I'll Make a Man of You", "Roses of Picardy" (uncredited)

1969