Maggie Smith, beloved star of ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Harry Potter’, dies at 89

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Dame Maggie Smith, one of Britain’s best-known actresses whose long career spanned from starring opposite Laurence Olivier in “Othello” on stage and screen to roles in “Harry Potter” and “Downton Abbey,” has died, her family announced. children in a statement shared by their publicist Clair Dobbs.

She was 89 years old.

“It is with great sadness that we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. Passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. An intensely private person, in the end he was with friends and family,” the statement reads. “She leaves behind two children and five beloved 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 Hospital for their unconditional care and kindness during his final days.”

Smith was born in 1934 in Ilford, then a middle-class suburb of east London. Shortly before the start of the Second World War the family moved to Oxford, where his father worked as a pathologist at the University of Oxford.

Upon graduating from high school, Smith attended the Oxford Playhouse School from 1951 to 1953, making his stage debut in an Oxford University Dramatic Society production of William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”

He then appeared on Broadway in “New Faces of 1956” and then played the role of lead comedian in the London revue “Share My Lettuce” between 1957 and 1958. He soon began appearing regularly in plays at The Old Vic theater in London.

In 1964, she played the role of Desdemona in Olivier’s Othello, before reprising the role in the film version the following year. Smith won her first Academy Award for best actress in 1969 for her portrayal of an unconventional schoolteacher in the film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.”

In 1978, she received a second Academy Award, this time for best supporting actress, for her performance in Neil Simon’s “California Suite.” She also received film awards from the British Academy of Film for her work, including her roles in 1985’s “A Room with a View” and 1987’s “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne.”

Smith was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990, and was widely known as Dame Maggie Smith thereafter.

But in many ways, her best roles were yet to come, including a starring role in the 1999 classic “Tea with Mussolini,” about a group of upper-middle-class English women in Florence, Italy, during the era of fascism, directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

She is perhaps best remembered as an actress who managed to achieve not only longevity but even greater fame in her later life.

She caught the attention of younger viewers as the strict but fair witchcraft professor Minerva McGonagall in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2001), and also appeared in several “Harry Potter” sequels.

Acclaim returned to both sides of the Atlantic for her portrayal of the caustic Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” the acclaimed period drama about the British aristocracy. He received three Emmy Awards for the role, which he reprized for a 2019 feature film.

In his later years, Smith became a role model for aging gracefully, a process he handled with his usual charm and wit.

When asked by the British magazine “Women’s World” in 2017 why she had not attended more awards ceremonies, Smith responded: “I really think that if I went to Los Angeles, for example, I think it would scare people… They don’t I don’t see older people.”

Smith was married twice, to actor Robert Stephens (the couple divorced in 1974) and again to playwright Beverly Cross, from 1975 until his death in 1998.