Maggie Smith [Replay] - ©Theda Bara

Yesterday morning, September 27, 2024, at the age of 89, we lost actress Dame Maggie Smith, who will be remembered on stage and in film, as she herself liked to describe herself: an icon. Always acting with naturalness combined with emotion, common to the British, she always enchanted Hollywood. She was a “dart” that always hit the bull's eye with her brilliant performances.

With an extensive career in English theater and TV, on HBO in the United States, in Hollywood and on Broadway, Smith has appeared in over 60 films and over 70 plays and is one of the UK's most acclaimed, recognized and prolific actresses, which in more than seven decades, has won the Triple Crown of Acting: she has received the highest praise from acting experts in film, television and theatre, what more could an artist ask for during her career? An Oscar, right? And he came twice. Smith also won a Tony Award in 1990; three Golden Globes 1979, 1987 and 2013; and four Primetime Emmy Awards in 2003, 2011, 2012 and 2016.

In 1990, Maggie Smith was named a “Dame” by Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022), for contributions to the arts, and in 2014 she was made a Companion of Honor for services to drama. Her first film appearance was in the British film: “Child in the House”, in 1956, as an actress without lines, at a party, even so, she stole the scene.

Her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress came in 1966 for her performance in the film adaptation of “Othello” (1965); five years later 1970, Smith would win the first Oscar this one for Best Actress for her performance in the title role of the film: “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969); in 1979 another Oscar, this one for Best Supporting Actress, in “California Suite” (1978), her character was: “Diana Barrie”. His other Oscar-nominated roles were: in “Travels with My Aunt” (1972), in 1973, character: “Aunt Augusta”; in 1986 “A Room with a View” (1985), interpreting: “Charlotte Bartlett”; and in 2002, in “Gosford Park” (2001), character “Constance Trentham”. She gained popularity playing half-blood Scottish schoolteacher, the witch “Minerva McGonagall”, in the "Harry Potter" film series (from 2001 to 2011). Other notable films include: “Death on the Nile” (1978), character: “Miss Bowers”; “Hook” (1991), character: “Wendy Moira Angela Darling”; “Sister Acts 1 and 2” (1992 and 1993), character: “Mother Superior”; “Secret Garden” (1993), character: “Mrs. Medlock”; “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 1 and 2” (2011 and 2015), character: “Muriel Donnelly”; “Quartet” (2012), character: “Jean Horton”; and “The Lady in the Van” (2015), character: “Mary Shepherd”.

Maggie Smith does not have a star on the Los Angeles Walk of Fame, but she has perpetuated her hands on Cinema 100, due to the series “Downton Abbey”, where the actress spectacularly gave life to the character: “Violet Crawley”. This award-winning series first aired on ITV in the UK on 26 September 2010 and on PBS in the US on 9 January 2011 (themed around the sinking of the Titanic in 1912). The final episode aired simultaneously in both countries on November 8, 2015.

 

Maggie Smith, born Margaret Natalie Smith on 28 December 1934 in Ilford, United Kingdom, died on 27 September 2024, at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, United Kingdom, 3 months and 1 day before her 90th birthday. 

Dame Maggie Smith was married twice, the first to British actor and also a Knight of the Queen: Sir Robert Graham Stephens (1931-1995) from 1967 to 1975, with whom she had two children, also actors Chris Larkin (1967-) and Toby Stephens (1969-). Maggie and Robert divorced and the couple's two children stayed with their ex-husband; in the same year of the separation, she was married from 1975 to 1998 with the English playwright and screenwriter Alan Beverley Cross (1931-1998), of whom she became a widow after 23 years together.