Margaret Natalie Smith, known as Maggie Smith, has died at the age of 89, her family announced on Friday, September 27. The elderly British star, whose career began in 1951, never stopped acting throughout her 70-plus years career. Most recently known as the Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey and the rigorous Hogwarts witch in the Harry Potter saga, Smith was in demand right up to the end by directors and filmmakers.
On stage, Smith played stand-out roles in both classical and contemporary repertoires in some 100 plays. Appearing in nearly 60 feature films, she acted for prestigious directors such as Joseph L. Mankiewicz (The Honey Pot, 1967), George Cukor (Travels with my Aunt, 1972) and Robert Altman (Gosford Park, 2001). She never shied away from popular films and enjoyed entertaining with comedies. In this field, the two parts of Sister Act in 1992 (Emile Ardolino) and 1993 (Bill Duke) – in which she is the mother superior of the convent that serves as a refuge for the wild Whoopi Goldberg – were among her biggest successes.
This impressive career made her one of the most highly regarded actresses with two Oscars to her credit: Best Actress for Ronald Neame’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), in which she played an impetuous teacher determined to impose unorthodox teaching methods on a girls’ high school in the 1930s and Best Supporting Actress for Herbert Ross’s California Suite (1978).
Strong desires
To these two statuettes were added three Golden Globes (one for James Ivory’s Room with a View, in 1986), five Baftas for Best Actress (and two Honorary), along with two Emmy Awards for the Downton Abbey series. As well as receiving honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews (Scotland) and the University of London, Maggie Smith was also made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990 and a Companion of Honor in 2014 for services to the country in the field of the arts. These honors, which she rarely mentioned, were nevertheless the icing on the cake, crowning both her talent and the determination she showed from childhood.
Born on December 28, 1934, in Ilford, a suburb of East London, Margaret Natalie Smith quickly developed a tenacious character and strong desires. As a child, she wanted to become an actress. Nothing would dissuade her, not even the arguments of reason put forward by her parents. Her mother, a secretary, and her father, a university professor, saw their daughter’s ambition as lacking gravity and irresponsible. The little girl stood up to them until she won her case at the age of 17 when she joined the Oxford Playhouse School. It was on this stage that she performed her first roles and launched her career.
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