Actor Dame Maggie Smith, known for her iconic role as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films and Violet Crawley in the British period drama Downton Abbey, has passed away. She was 89.
The news was confirmed by her sons Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens in a statement. They said, “She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September."
The prolific actor, who was both a legend on stage and screen, won a best actress Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1970 and a best supporting actress Oscar for California Suite in 1979. Apart from that, she has had three Golden Globes, eight BAFTA Film Awards, and one Tony Award.
Born in 1934 in Ilford, Smith grew up in Oxford and began acting at the city’s Playhouse theatre as a teenager. She made her stage debut in an Oxford University Dramatic Society production of William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” She gained her first BAFTA nomination in the 1958 thriller Nowhere to Go.
Her first Academy Award nomination was for her turn playing Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier's Othello in 1965.
In the 1980s, Smith thrived in both film and stage, starring opposite Michael Palin in A Private Function and earning an Oscar nomination for her role as Charlotte Bartlett in A Room With a View. She also featured in The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne and played Virginia Woolf in Edna O’Brien’s play. Smith reunited with Alan Bennett for his Talking Heads series and later appeared in notable films like Tea With Mussolini, Gosford Park, and Ladies in Lavender. She portrayed Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter series between 2001 and 2011 in every installment apart from Deathly Hallows Part 1. She also became widely recognised as the Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, a role she reprised in two Downton Abbey films released in 2019 and 2022.
Other critically acclaimed roles included Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest on the West End stage, a 92-year-old bitterly fighting senility in Edward Albee's play Three Tall Women, and her part in 2001 black comedy movie Gosford Park. She was last seen in 2023’s The Miracle Club alongside Kathy Bates and Laura Linney.
