Maggie Smith, beloved ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Harry Potter’ star, dead at 89

CNN

By Hilary Clarke and Caitlin Danaher, CNN

(CNN) — Dame Maggie Smith, one of Britain’s best-known actresses whose long career ranged from starring opposite Laurence Olivier in “Othello” on stage and screen, to roles in “Harry Potter” and “Downton Abbey,” has died, her sons announced in a statement shared by their publicist Clair Dobbs.

She was 89.

“It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end,” the statement reads. “She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days.”

Smith was born in 1934 in Ilford, then a middle-class east London suburb. Shortly before the start of World War II the family moved to Oxford, where her father worked as a pathologist at Oxford University.

On graduating from high school, Smith attended the Oxford Playhouse School from 1951 to 1953, making her stage debut in an Oxford University Dramatic Society production of William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”

She went on to appear on Broadway in “New Faces of 1956,” and then held the lead comedian role in the London revue “Share My Lettuce,” between 1957 and 1958. She soon began appearing regularly in plays at The Old Vic theater in London.

In 1964, she played Desdemona to Olivier’s Othello, before reprising the role for the film version the following year. Smith won her first Academy Award for best actress in 1969 for her portrayal of an unconventional schoolteacher in the movie “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.”

In 1978, she was awarded a second Academy Award, this time for best supporting actress, for her performance in Neil Simon’s “California Suite.” She has also received British Academy Film Awards for her work, including for her roles in 1985’s “A Room with a View” and 1987’s “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne.”

Smith was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990, and from then on was widely known as Dame Maggie Smith.

But in many ways, her best roles were yet to come, including a starring role in the 1999 classic “Tea with Mussolini,” about a group of upper-middle class English women in Florence, Italy, during the time of fascism, directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

Perhaps she will be best remembered as an actress who managed to achieve not only longevity but even greater fame in later life.

She came to the notice of younger viewers as the strict but fair witchcraft teacher Minerva McGonagall in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2001), also appearing in several “Harry Potter” sequels.

Acclaim came again on both sides of the Atlantic for her interpretation of the caustic-tongued Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” the acclaimed period drama about the British aristocracy. She received three Emmy Awards for the role, which she reprised for a 2019 feature-length film.

In her later years, Smith became a role model for ageing gracefully, a process she handled with her customary charm and wit.

When asked in 2017 by the UK magazine “Women’s World” why she had not gone to more award ceremonies, Smith replied: “I truly think if I went to Los Angeles, for example, I think I’d frighten people… They don’t see older people.”

Smith was married twice, to the actor Robert Stephens – the couple divorced in 1974 – and again to playwright Beverley Cross, from 1975 until his death in 1998.

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