Maggie Smith, actor from ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Harry Potter,’ dies

Two-time Oscar winner Maggie Smith, the celebrated stage actress who starred in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and burnished her long-shining star by taking part in the scene-stealing dowager countess of “Downton Abbey” and the exacting Professor McGonagall within the “Harry Potter” franchise, has died. She was 89.

The revered English dame “handed away peacefully” early Friday in a London hospital, her sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, mentioned in an announcement to The Times.

“An intensely non-public individual, she was with family and friends on the finish. She leaves two sons and 5 loving grandchildren who’re devastated by the lack of their extraordinary mom and grandmother,” they mentioned in an announcement issued via publicist Clair Dobbs.

Her sons didn’t disclose her reason behind dying within the assertion. Smith had been candid about her well being points prior to now, affected by glaucoma, Graves’ illness and breast most cancers, and she or he underwent hip-replacement surgical procedure in her 80s. In their assertion, her sons thanked the “fantastic workers on the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for his or her care and unstinting kindness throughout her closing days.”

During a profession that spanned six a long time, Smith acquired a big following on either side of the Atlantic and have become one in all few to realize the triple crown of appearing — profitable Academy, Emmy and Tony awards. She earned her Oscars taking part in the unconventional schoolmarm in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and a brittle film star in “California Suite” within the Nineteen Seventies. She additionally had 4 Primetime Emmys, three Golden Globes, a Tony, an Olivier Award and a slate of BAFTAs to her title.

The veteran performer famously summed up her profession in a single sentence: “One went to high school, one wished to behave, one began to behave, and one’s nonetheless appearing.”

Beginning her work in theater as a teen, Smith performed Shakespeare’s Rosalind and Beatrice. She hit her stride with imperious characters and class-conscious snobs. A commanding presence on par with contemporaries Judi Dench and Vanessa Redgrave, Smith was awarded as a Companion of Honor by Queen Elizabeth in 1990. In individual, Smith was humorous, self-deprecating and down-to-earth.

“I’ll get stressed except I’m appearing. That’s once I come actually alive, you see,” she informed The Times.

She alternated theater work with cinema and achieved Oscar nods for “Othello” (1965), “Travels With My Aunt” (1972), “A Room With a View” (1985) and “Gosford Park” (2001). In addition to “Downton Abbey” and the eight-film blockbuster “Harry Potter” saga, Smith starred in a number of initiatives teeming with established British expertise, together with the “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” movies and “The Lady within the Van.”

“I’ve had fairly a spread as an actress,” she quipped. “All the way in which from Desdemona to Virginia to appearing with a pig in (1984’s) ‘A Private Function.’ ”

A key to her reputation with such disparate audiences was her vary. Her late-onset acclaim because the loyal deputy headmistress charged with Gryffindor House within the much-hyped wizard franchise was to be anticipated. And whereas she was the primary decide for the function, legions of younger “Harry Potter” followers had by no means heard of Smith when she was forged. But her participation within the franchise introduced new followers and nice monetary reward.

“Harry Potter is my pension,” she informed the Telegraph.

She learn J.Ok. Rowling’s bestsellers and loved taking part in the long-lasting professor, relating to her time on the movies as “surreal.” But the films didn’t endear her to movie appearing, and she or he wasn’t all the time thrilled with the publicity the half gave her. Of “Downton Abbey,” ITV’s shock mega-hit that resuscitated public broadcaster PBS within the United States, Smith mentioned she by no means bothered to look at the sequence.

“Why do I need to see it?” she informed The Times. “I’m doing it. I do know the story of it. I do have the boxed set, however you already know that may take me to the tip of my life to look at.”

She delighted in her later work, although lamented the calls for of “Downton” and “Harry Potter,” in addition to quitting the stage. The British nationwide treasure made no acutely aware determination to cease theater however thinned out her commitments after her breast most cancers prognosis. Still, theater remained her past love.

“I really feel extra comfortable within the theater than I do in life,” she informed The Times in 2003. “What I discover extraordinary in theater is the immediacy of working with an viewers, an entire home full of individuals. To know you’ll be able to have all people listening and reacting to what you’re doing, there’s nothing fairly like that.”

Smith had a strict coverage of not studying her evaluations — and by no means used the web — studying what was written about her solely when her second husband, Beverley Cross, the late playwright, would allude to it after he scoured each line.

“I discover for those who do learn the notices you begin to play them. If the critics decide on one specific second of your efficiency you turn into obsessed by it. So I don’t learn them. My husband often says one thing like: ‘They have been OK. Don’t panic,’ and that’s sufficient for me,” Smith mentioned in 1985.

Despite her repute as being unpretentious, she acquired a notoriety on set, intimidating administrators and costars. She mentioned it was a product of concern and nerves.

“The terrible factor is, I’m very conscious once I’m being troublesome, however I’m often so scared. And that’s shaming, on the age one is,” she mentioned.

But there was no use altering course so late into her profession, and she or he mentioned it could “frighten” coworkers if she have been nicer.

“It’s gone too far now to take again,” she informed the Telegraph. “If I abruptly got here on like Pollyanna, it wouldn’t work — it could frighten folks extra if I have been good. They’d be paralyzed with concern. And marvel what I used to be as much as. But maybe I ought to strive it … ‘Hello! What enjoyable! We’re going to be right here all day! And then filming all evening too! Goodie!’ ”

Born Margaret Natalie Smith in 1934, she modified her title to Maggie Smith in 1956 when she registered with Equity, the British actors’ union, as a result of Margaret Smith was taken.

She was born within the Essex suburb of Ilford, and there was little theatrical about her background: Her father, Nat, was a medical technician, and her Scottish mom, Meg, was a Presbyterian. Her brothers, Ian and Alistair, have been twins six years older than her. The household moved to Oxford when she was 5, and abruptly she realized she wished to behave.

“I used to be completely obsessed, which confused my mother and father completely. Both my brothers have been architects, they usually simply didn’t know the place it (her driving ambition) had come from,” she informed the Telegraph.

Smith obtained little encouragement upon saying her dramatic intentions — even her grandmother turned to her mom and mentioned: “You merely can’t let her. Not with that face.”

After leaving Oxford High School for Girls at 16, her plans to go to London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art have been foiled by her mother and father. They mentioned that if she wished to pursue her dream, she must keep in Oxford.

She joined the Oxford Playhouse School of Theatre, debuting at 17 as Viola in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” Her expertise, immaculate timing and propensity for comedy have been famous, with an Observer author saying, “She seems to be as crisp as a celery stick and speaks like a woman who has a superb thoughts of her personal.”

Doing revues in Oxford and at festivals, producer Leonard Sillman noticed her and “that’s the way it occurred,” Smith informed The Times in 2016. At 21, she starred in Sillman’s musical comedy revue “New Faces of 1956” on Broadway and shortly was a rising star.

She made her movie debut within the 1958 crime drama “Nowhere to Go” with George Nader. Upon her return to Britain, Laurence Olivier invited her to hitch London’s Royal National Theatre, and she or he performed Desdemona reverse Olivier in “Othello,” first on stage, then within the 1965 movie model, for which she obtained her first Oscar nomination. It was a job that felt intimidating however propelled her profession.

“It was scary,” she informed The Times in 2016. “Shakespeare and I have been a great distance aside as a result of I had been doing issues like ‘New Faces’ and revues. I might have been terrified anyway simply leaping into Shakespeare, however that was stepping into at a reasonably dizzying stage.”

Olivier had additionally recruited charismatic younger actor Robert Stephens, with whom Smith instantly fell in love. The star couple’s onstage chemistry was palpable in “Hay Fever” and “Much Ado About Nothing,” which have been large sellers on the field workplace.

They married in 1967 and had two sons, Christopher and Toby. Stephens’ alcoholism and instability eroded the union as Smith succeeded in movie, whereas his profession stalled out. They divorced in 1975. Four months after it was finalized, she reunited with Cross, whom she first met at a scholar revue at Oxford and later had an affair with throughout his first divorce. He divorced his second spouse they usually wed in a civil ceremony that yr, and he took on Smith’s two sons as his personal.

Smith and Olivier famously didn’t get alongside and, after her divorce, she and her household set off for Canada, the place she spent 4 years with the Shakespeare Company at Stratford, Ontario. Under the route of Robin Phillips, she tackled classical roles she hadn’t in London — Cleopatra, Rosalind and Lady Macbeth amongst them.

“It was fantastic,” she informed the Telegraph, “like beginning life yet again, actually.”

In swinging Sixties London, when movies featured recent mini-skirted ingenues resembling Julie Christie and Redgrave, Smith stood aside. Filmmakers picked up on her eccentric, mannered model and the so-called “Maggie Smith character” — the class-fixated braggart she perfected — was born.

“I feel it’s only a query of individuals not realizing fairly what to do with you,” she mentioned.

Smith appeared on Broadway in 1975’s “Private Lives” and 1979’s “Night and Day.” Her Nineteen Seventies movie credit included “Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing,” “Murder by Death” and “Death on the Nile.” Alongside a forged that included Jane Fonda, Walter Matthau, Michael Caine, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and Alan Alda, Smith earned her second Academy Award taking part in Oscar-loser Diana Barrie, who finds herself amongst a motley crew of company staying at a Beverly Hills resort in Neil Simon’s 1978 “California Suite.”

Then got here “Virginia,” the play about modernist author Virginia Woolf in 1981. The present was so profitable that it was taken to London. She additionally starred with Olivier and Harry Hamlin in Cross’ adaptation of the Greek epic “Clash of the Titans” and a slew of movie comedies earlier than touchdown within the 1985 Merchant Ivory manufacturing of E.M. Forster’s “A Room With a View.” The romantic drama was up for 3 Oscars, together with greatest image and supporting actress for Smith. It was her first pairing with Dench, a detailed pal who would work together with her onstage in 2002 for David Hare’s “The Breath of Life,” in Charles Dance’s “Ladies in Lavender” (2004) and the “Marigold Hotel” movies.

But it was “Quartet” that saved popping up on her resume. She had first performed Lois Heidler in James Ivory’s 1981 movie model and revisited the function when the movie was rebooted in 2012 in Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut. Smith earned a BAFTA nomination for the previous and a Golden Globe nomination for the latter.

Her nightly function as Lettice Douffet, the eccentric tour information on the coronary heart of Peter Shaffer’s comedy “Lettice and Lovage,” earned her a Tony Award for greatest actress when it hit Broadway in 1990. Contemporary movie stars Alan Bates, Glenda Jackson and Redgrave have been regulars on the West End, however Smith was among the many British artists resembling Anthony Hopkins and Dench who appeared at backed homes regardless of their flourishing movie careers.

“You discover that plenty of actors right here — myself included — do movie since you want that form of cash with a view to work within the (backed) theater,” Smith mentioned in 1988. “It was on this nation that you simply both did movies otherwise you labored within the theater. We’re fortunate to be round at a time when you are able to do each.”

The identical yr “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” hit theaters, Smith earned extensive acclaim in Robert Altman and Julian Fellowes’ mystery-comedy “Gosford Park.” The 2001 movie earned seven Oscar nominations, together with greatest image. Smith was nominated for supporting actress.

“I’m all the time in costume and interval issues, wandering round in wigs,” she informed The Times in 2001. “If they need a type of snobbish English nasty folks or no matter, I get into that bracket.”

Maggie Smith and director Michael Englar talk about a scene earlier than filming “Downton Abbey” within the upstairs set at Highclere Castle.

(Bethany Clarke / For The Times)

Due to her age and well being, Smith skipped a number of American awards exhibits in her later years regardless that she gained a number of instances for “Downton Abbey.” Her absence turned a punchline on the 2016 Emmy Awards when host Jimmy Kimmel swiped her supporting actress trophy, saying they wouldn’t mail it however that she may get it on the misplaced and located.

Writing through the Masterpiece PBS Twitter account, Smith mentioned: “I used to be very astonished and happy to win the award. I really feel the Emmys has been overly beneficiant to me. If Mr. Kimmel may please direct me to the misplaced and located workplace I’ll attempt to be on the subsequent flight.” She signed off on the submit: “Love outdated Maggie.”