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King Charles pays tribute to ‘national treasure’ Maggie Smith in heartbreaking message
“As the curtain comes down on a national treasure, we join all those around the world in remembering with the fondest admiration and affection her many great performances, and her warmth and wit that shone through both on and off the stage.”
Oscar-winning actress Dame Maggie Smith has been lauded as one of the greatest actors of our time, following her death aged 89.
The British star, who won two Academy Awards for her performances in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and California Suite, died in hospital on Friday morning. With a career spanning some 70 years, Dame Maggie has been remembered for her versatile repertoire ranging from Shakespeare to character parts, including in the film series Harry Potter and TV drama Downton Abbey.
Maggie Smith, beloved ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Harry Potter’ star
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.
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.
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.
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Image courtesy Nick Briggs/PBS