A pervasive presence on stage and screen

Dame Maggie Smith brought an incredible range of expression to her roles, earning high praise from directors and fellow actors alike.

It was said of her that she never took a role lightly and would often pace back and forth during rehearsals, going over her lines while the rest of the cast took a break.

In a profession notorious for its insecurities, her career has been distinguished by its longevity.

She made her acting debut in 1952 and was still working six decades later, having gone from rising star to national treasure.

Margaret Natalie Smith was born on December 28, 1934 in Ilford, Essex, the daughter of a pathologist.

When war threatened, the family moved to Oxford and young Maggie attended the Oxford School for Girls.

She began her acting career as a student and understudy at the Oxford Repertory. She once claimed that she never came on stage during her stay because no one in the company ever got sick.

In 1955 her troupe moved to a small theater in London, where she attracted the attention of an American producer, Leonard Stillman, who cast her in New Faces, a revue that premiered on Broadway in June 1956.

She stood out from the group of unknowns and after her return to London she was offered a six-month engagement in the revue “Share My Lettuce” alongside Kenneth Williams.

Her first film role was an uncredited role in the 1956 production Child in the House.

Two years later, she was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Newcomer for the 1958 melodrama Nowhere to Go, in which she played a girl who shelters an escaped convict.

Describing her role in the hit London production of Mary Mary in 1963, The Times said she was “the saving grace of this fluffy Broadway comedy.”

She almost stole the show from Richard Burton in The VIPs when she appeared in a pivotal scene with the Welsh star.

One critic noted that “when Maggie Smith is on screen, the picture moves,” and Burton afterwards teasingly described her production as a “grand theft.”

Later in 1963, Laurence Olivier offered her the role of Desdemona opposite his Othello at the National Theater. The production with the original cast was made into a film two years later, with Smith being nominated for an Oscar.

The role that brought her international fame came in 1969, when she played the decidedly non-conformist teacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

The role earned her an Oscar for Best Actress.

She also married her co-star Robert Stephens.

The actress worked at the National Theater for another two years, including as Mrs. Sullen in the Restoration comedy “The Beaux’ Stratagem” in Los Angeles.

She received another Oscar nomination for best actress after playing Aunt Augusta in the 1972 George Cukor film Travels with My Aunt.

She and Stephens divorced in 1975, and a year later she married playwright Beverley Cross. She also moved to Canada and spent four years in a repertory company, taking on more prominent roles in Macbeth and Richard III.

One critic wrote of her portrayal of Lady Macbeth and concluded that she “fused her own vivid personality with that of her charismatic subject.”

Despite her success, she was modest about her achievements, simply stating, “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started acting and one is still acting.”

She continued to work in films, appearing alongside Peter Ustinov in the 1978 film Death on the Nile and the role of Diana Barrie in Neil Simon’s California Suite in the same year.

The ’80s saw a number of memorable film performances and other awards, including Baftas for A Private Function and A Room With a View, the latter of which also earned her a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination.

There were further Baftas, first for her portrayal of the aging alcoholic in The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne and then for Bed Among The Lentils, one of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads series for the BBC.

In 1987 he returned to the stage in Lettice and Lovage at the Globe Theater in London before the production moved to New York. But her run was cut short after she suffered a cycling accident and then learned she would need eye surgery.

When she finally resumed work on Lettice and Lovege after a twelve-month break, her performance in New York won her a Tony.

She was made a DBE in 1990 and a year later appeared as an aging Wendy in Hook, Stephen Spielberg’s sequel to Peter Pan.

Other films followed, including “Sister Act” opposite Whoopi Goldberg and “The Secret Garden”, for which she was nominated for a Bafta.

The new century brought a Bafta and an Emmy nomination for her role as Betsey Trotwood in the BBC production of David Copperfield.

A year later, she appeared as Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, a role she would reprise in all subsequent Potter films.

She was reportedly the only cast member author JK Rowling specifically asked for, and brought a little touch of Miss Jean Brodie to Hogwarts.

In 2004, she appeared alongside her long-time friend and fellow actress Judi Dench in the gentle drama Ladies in Lavender.

The New York Times concluded that Smith and Dench “sink into their roles as comfortably as house cats huddled in a down comforter on a windswept, rainy night.”

Two years later she was the cash-strapped Countess of Trentham in Gosford Park, Robert Altman’s version of the English country house murder.

Her performance was a joy, with a hint of snobbery from which the masterful despondency emerged, particularly in the case of Mr. Novello’s failed film.

It was a role that she reprized almost entirely, except for the name, when she was cast in the ITV drama Downton Abbey. Her character’s name may have changed to “Dowager Countess of Grantham”, but the portrayal was essentially similar.

“It’s true, I don’t tolerate fools, but they don’t tolerate me either, so I’m prickly,” she once said. “Maybe that’s why I’m pretty good at playing prickly older ladies.”

She remained in the cast of Downton Abbey until 2015, when the series finally came to an end, and reprized the role for two films in 2019 and 2022.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 while filming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. After two years of treatment, she received the all-clear.

Despite feeling weak after her illness, she starred in the final Harry Potter film and received a Bafta nomination for her role in the 2012 film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

In 2015, she gave a moving performance in the film “The Lady in the Van,” based on the true story of Mary Shepherd, an elderly woman who lived in a run-down van in writer Alan Bennett’s driveway in London for 15 years lived.

She previously appeared in the stage version of the story, for which she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress, and in a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Bennett’s play in 2009.

Dame Maggie gave few interviews but was once asked to define the appeal of acting. “I like the fleeting nature of theater, every performance is like a ghost – it’s there and then it’s gone.”