Becoming an international star and Oscar-winnerpublished at 16:00 British Summer Time
The role of Jean Brodie, alongside future husband Robert Stephens, won her an Oscar
The role which brought Dame Maggie Smith international fame
came in 1969 when she played the determinedly non-conformist teacher in The
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
The part won her a best actress Oscar. She also married her
co-star, Robert Stephens.
The actress continued with the National Theatre for another two
years including a performance as Mrs Sullen in the Restoration comedy The
Beaux’ Stratagem in Los Angeles.
She received another Oscar nomination for best actress after
playing Aunt Augusta in the George Cukor film, Travels With My Aunt, in 1972.
She and Stephens divorced in 1975, and a year later she was
married to the playwright, Beverley Cross, and also moved to Canada, spending four years in a repertory company where she took on weightier roles in Macbeth
and Richard III.
One critic, writing of her performance as Lady Macbeth, decided
she had “merged her own vivid personality with that of her charismatic
subject”.
Despite her success, she was modest about her achievements,
stating simply that “one went to school, one wanted to act, one started to
act, and one’s still acting.”
She continued to work in the cinema playing opposite Peter
Ustinov in the 1978 film, Death on the Nile and, in the same year, the part of
Diana Barrie in Neil Simon’s California Suite.