Maggie Smith, famous for Harry Potter and Downton Abbey, dies at the age of 89

LONDON (AP) — Maggie SmithThe masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar in 1969 for the film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and won new fans in the 21st century as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died on Friday. She was 89.

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

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

Smith was widely recognized as the outstanding British actress of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with two Oscars, a string of Oscar nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies.

She made her film debut in the 1950s, won Oscars for her work in the '60s and '70s, and had memorable roles in each subsequent decade, including an older Wendy in the Peter Pan story “Hook” (1991) and a matron in one Klosters in Whoopi Goldberg's comedy “Sister Act” (1992).

A convincing stage actress, she played the Shakespeare tragedy – the 1965 adaptation “Othello” – and voiced in “Gnomeo & Juliet” (2011), an animated film inspired by Shakespeare.

She remained in demand in her later years, although she lamented that “in the grandma era you can be lucky to get something.”

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

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

“Jean Brodie,” in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh teacher, won her the Oscar for best actress and also the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA).

Smith won a supporting actress Oscar in 1978 for California Suite, Golden Globes for California Suite and A Room with a View, and a BAFTA in 1984 for lead actress in A Private Function, A Room with a View. 1986 and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” 1988.

She also received Oscar nominations for Supporting Actress in Othello, Traveling with My Aunt, A Room with a View and Gosford Park, as well as a BAFTA Award for Supporting Actress in Tea with Mussolini. On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for Lettice and Love.

From 2010 she played the acerbic Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the hit TV historical drama ” “Downton Abbey” A role that earned her countless fans, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe and a host of other nominations.

But she resented the fame on television. When the show ended in 2016, Smith said she was relieved. “It’s freedom,” she told The Associated Press.

“It wasn't until 'Downton Abbey' that I became known or stopped on the street and asked for one of those terrible photos,” she said.

She continued to act well into her 80s, including in the theatrical spin-off of “Downton Abbey” in 2019, the sequel “Downton Abbey: A New Era” in 2022 and the theatrical release “The Miracle Club” in 2019 Year 2023.

Smith had a reputation for being difficult and sometimes overshadowing others.

Richard Burton noted that Smith took on more than one scene with him in The VIPs: “She commits a grand theft.” However, director Peter Hall found Smith “not remotely difficult” “unless “She's one of the 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 acknowledged that she can be impatient at times.

“It's true I don't tolerate fools, but they don't tolerate me either, so I'm prickly,” Smith said. “Maybe that’s why I’m pretty good at playing prickly older ladies.”

Critic Frank Rich, in a review of “Lettice and Lovage” in The New York Times, praised Smith as “the stylized classic that includes a line as prosaic as 'Don't you have any jam?' can write in italics?” until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram from Coward or Wilde.”

Smith got laughs in a 1964 revival of Noel Coward's Hay Fever with a prosaic line – “That haddock is disgusting”.

She repeated the gift for one-liners in “Downton Abbey” when the tradition-bound Violet asked withering: “What's a weekend?”

King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla paid tribute to Smith, who was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, a knight, by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1990.

“As the curtain falls on a national treasure, we join everyone around the world in remembering with the greatest admiration and affection her many magnificent performances and her warmth and wit that shone through both off and on stage,” said she a statement.

Fellow actor she acknowledged on Friday. Hugh Bonneville, who played the son of Smith's character in Downton Abbey, said: “Anyone who has ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her keen eye, sharp mind and impressive talent.”

“She was a true legend of her generation and will thankfully live on in so many great film performances,” he said in a statement.

Rob Lowe, who starred alongside her in “Suddenly, Last Summer,” said the experience was “unforgettable…sharing a two-shot was like being mated with a lion.”

“It could eat anyone alive, and often did. But fun and great company. And you don't suffer fools. We'll never see another one again. Thank God, Mrs. Smith!” Lowe wrote about X.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer called Smith “a true national treasure whose work will be treasured for generations to come.”

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

Her father was assigned to military service in Oxford in 1939, where her theater studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy education.

“I did so many things there at the universities, you know. … If you were smart enough, and I guess you were fast enough, you could do repeats almost every week because all the colleges were doing different productions at different times,” she said in a BBC interview.

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

Laurence Olivier recognized her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theater 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 of whom appeared in National Theater productions, were important influences.

Alan Bennett, who was preparing to film the monologue “A Bed Among the Lentils,” said he was concerned about Smith's reputation for being boring. As actor Jeremy Brett put it, “She starts divine and then goes down, more like a cheese.”

“The fact that we had just enough time to do it was really an absolute blessing because she was so fresh and so enthusiastic,” Bennett said. He also wrote a starring role for Smith in “The Lady in the Van” as Miss Shepherd, a feared woman who lived in her vehicle in Bennett's London driveway for years.

As flamboyant as she was on stage or in front of the camera, Smith was known for remaining very private.

“She never wanted to talk about acting. She was very afraid to talk about acting because if she did she would disappear,” said Simon Callow, who appeared with her in “A Room with a View.”

Smith married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, Christopher and Toby, both of whom became actors, and divorced in 1975. In the same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998.

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Hilary Fox and Pan Pylas in London contributed to this story. Associated Press writer Robert Barr contributed biographical material to this obituary before his death in 2018.