Maggie Smith, the beloved actress of the films "Downton Abbey" and "Harry Potter", dies at the age of 89

She is 89 years old. “It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital in the early hours of Friday 27th September. She was a very private person and spent her final days with friends and family,” the statement said. “She has two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at Chelsea and Westminster Hospitals for their care and generous kindness during her final days.

Smith was born in Ilford in 1934 to a middle-class family in the east suburbs of London. Shortly before the start of World War II, the family moved to Oxford, where her father worked as a pathologist. After high school, Smith attended the Oxford Theater School from 1951 to 1953 and made his stage debut in the Oxford University Dramatic Society’s production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

She went on to play on Broadway in Fresh Faces 1956 and then as the lead comedian in the London revue Share My Lettuce from 1957 to 1958. London.

In 1964, she played Desdemona in Olivier’s Othello, a role she reprized the following year in the film version. In 1969, Smith won her first Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of an unconventional teacher in Miss Jane Brody.

In 1978, she won her second Academy Award, this time for Best Supporting Actress, for her performance in Neil Simon’s California Suite. She also won a BAFTA for her work, including roles in A Room with a View in 1985 and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearn in …Smith was awarded an OBE in 1990 and has since been known as Dame Maggie Smith. But in many ways her best roles were yet to come, including the title role in the 1999 classic Tea With Mussolini, about a group of upper-middle-class British women set in the fascist history of Florence, Italy, directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

She fought cancer while filming the eighth Harry Potter movies because she didn't want to disappoint fans 🥹

Winner of 2 Oscars, 3 Golden Globes, 5 BAFTAs, 4 Emmys and 2 SAGs among other awards. Thank you for giving life to Minerva McGonagall 🏆

Goodbye, Maggie Smith 🪦 pic.twitter.com/PoTabdNich

— Daily Harry Potter (@TheDailyHPotter) September 27, 2024

Perhaps she will be best remembered as an actress who not only managed to live a long life, but also achieved greater fame in her later years. She caught the attention of young people as the strict but fair wizarding teacher Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) and starred in several Harry Potter sequels.

She won acclaim again on both sides of the Atlantic for her powerful role as Violet Crawley, Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, an acclaimed period drama about the history of the British aristocracy. She won three Emmy Awards for the role and reprized the role in the 2019 feature film.

In her later years, Smith became a paragon of aging gracefully, and she handled it with her usual charm and wit. In 2017, when British magazine Feminine asked her why she didn’t attend more awards shows, Smith said: “I really think if I went to, say, Los Angeles, I’d scare people off… and they wouldn’t. “I I don’t see the old man. “

Smith was married twice, once to actor Robert Stevens, whom he divorced in 1974, and to playwright Beverly Cross from 1975 until his death in 1998.