The Renowned British actress Dame Maggie Smith has died, according to her family to CBS News. She died peacefully in the hospital but with loved ones surrounding her. She played top-shelf professors of magic in the “Harry Potter” series and Violet Crawley in “Downton Abbey,” which is consistent with some of her most popular screen roles.
Statement from her sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens: “She was a powerfully private person, but a warm and generous mother and grandmother to two sons and five grandchildren. We all feel devastated by the loss of a beloved mother and grandmother.”
Born Margaret Natalie Smith in Ilford, Essex, on December 28, 1934, Smith started early with her successful performing arts career. When she was four, her family moved to Oxford where, at the age of 16, she went on to study acting at the Oxford Playhouse. She quipped about her life: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one’s still acting.”
She used the name “Maggie” as her stage name to avoid confusion with an actress named Margaret Smith. Professional career In 1952, her first professional job was playing Viola in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” Maggie then finally arrived on the New York Stage in 1956 by participating in the review “New Faces of 1956.”
Her film career proper began in 1959 with “Nowhere to Go,” which brought her first BAFTA nomination-one of eighteen such nominations. It was her talent that caught the attention of Laurence Olivier, who asked her to be one of his new members in the National Theatre company. She was to win an Academy Award for Best Actress for the “Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969, making her one of the most excellent actresses of her generation.
Smith walked away with many accolades, including two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, and five Screen Actors Guild Awards. Although Smith sometimes seems to feign the outrage of retirement, she didn’t fade away from the screens entirely rather she had an additional fan base based on the success she gained through her work in the “Harry Potter” series. She once joked, “Harry Potter is my pension, alluding to the power the series had over her final years of work.
In recent years, Smith has continued to brighten up the screen, appearing in “Downton Abbey: A New Era” and “The Miracle Club.” She showed no signs of letting up at a point when she was quoted as saying that “I think I’ll keep going with Violet and whatever other old biddy comes along.”
Besides her successes in the sphere of acting, Smith was decorated with the title of Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1990. She was married two times: for the first time to actor Robert Stephens, with whom she had two sons; and then to writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998.
Dame Maggie Smith’s legend in performing arts is something that cannot be reproduced, and inspiration towards future actors in film and theatre will remain forever.
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