Dame Maggie Smith dominated the halls of Hogwarts as Professor McGonagall and provided a sublime acidic wit as the Dowager Countess in Downtown Abbey in a career spanning seven decades.
Born in Ilford, Essex, in 1934, she left school at the age of 16 to study acting at the Oxford Playhouse before making her professional debut on Broadway in 1956.
Alongside Judi Dench, she established herself as one of the best British theatre performers before going on to win her first Academy Award for Best Actress in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969).
Her career boasts numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five BAFTAs, four Emmy’s, three Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award.
As Britain mourns the loss of one of the best British actors of all time, lets take a look at her most iconic moments on screen.
Dame Maggie Smith appears in the 2005 film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Professor Minerva McGonagall
Perhaps Dame Maggie’s most iconic role was when she played Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films.
The experienced won over a whole new generation of fans when she played Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films.
From 2001 to 2011, she played Harry Potter’s teacher who was the head of the house of Gryffindor.
She was also the school’s deputy headmistress under Professor Albus Dumbledore, played by Richard Harris and, after his death, by Michael Gambon. Gambon died a year to the day before Dame Maggie.
The role saw her reunite with Daniel Radcliffe having previously starred alongside him in 1999’s David Copperfield.
Despite the quick-witted, kind and formidable professor of transfiguration becoming a prominent character in the series, Dame Maggie had regularly said she did not find her role in the films fully satisfying, but said they had allowed her to bond with her grandchildren.
Smith as Professor Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Maggie Smith alongside Miriam Margolyes, Richard Harris and Alan Rickman in 2002 film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham
From 2010 to 2015, Dame Maggie played the quick-witted matriarch Violet Crowley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, becoming central to the success of ITV series.
The role won her three Emmy awards and she continued to play the character in spin-off films Downton Abbey (2019) and Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022).
During Dame Maggie’s time playing the character, Violet found her influence on Downton Abbey under threat, as social norms changed, from Isobel Crawley, with whom she regularly argued, and her daughter-in-law Cora, with both being more forward-thinking.
Dame Maggie Smith played the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey
Imelda Staunton and Smith share their screen during the Downton Abbey film
Jean Brodie
The film saw her play the unrestrained teacher at an all-girls school in Edinburgh during the 1930s, who had a tendency to stray from the school’s curriculum, to romanticise fascist leaders such as Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco, and believed herself to be in the prime of life.
In the film, the teacher devotes her energy and attention to girls she sees as special or mouldable, eventually seeing her lead them into disastrous situations.
It was the film that caused her to emerge as an international star with her virtuoso performance.
Dame Maggie won a best actress Oscar for the role in 1970.
Dame Smith won an Oscar for Best Actress for her role in the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
Diana Barrie
The actor won her second Oscar for best supporting actress in 1978’s California Suite, where she played actor Diana Barrie.
In the film her character is a first-time nominee for the Academy Award for best actress in an independent British film, an honour that could revive her faltering career, but she knows she has no chance of winning.
Throughout the movie Diana is in denial about the nature of her marriage of convenience to Sidney Cochran, a gay antiques dealer who becomes increasingly open about his sexuality.
As she prepares for her moment in the spotlight, her mood fluctuates from hope to panic to despair.
Michael Caine and Maggie Smith in California Suite (1978)
Throughout the movie Diana is in denial about the nature of her marriage of convenience to Sidney Cochran (played by Michael Caine), a gay antiques dealer who becomes increasingly open about his sexuality
Maggie Smith holds her Oscar for best supporting actress in the film California Suite 1979
Mary Shepherd
In 2015, Dame Maggie played the role of Mary Shepherd in The Lady In The Van, a mostly true story about Shepherd, who was an elderly woman who lived in a dilapidated van on a driveway in north London for 15 years.
The film was based on a memoir by the playwright Alan Bennett, whose driveway Shepherd lived on from the 1970s to the 1980s.
At the end of the movie Bennett eventually finds out, after Shepherd’s death, that she had fled her home after she was involved in an accident when her van was hit by a motorcyclist.
Shepherd blamed herself for his death and lived the rest of her life in fear of arrest.
In 2015, Dame Maggie played the role of Mary Shepherd in The Lady In The Van
The film was based on a memoir by the playwright Alan Bennett (left), whose driveway Shepherd lived on from the 1970s to the 1980s
At the end of the movie Bennett eventually finds out, after Shepherd’s death, that she had fled her home after she was involved in an accident when her van was hit by a motorcyclist
Maggie Smith features in The Lady In The Van (2015)
An actress of versatility and contrasts
Dame Smith was one of the most versatile, accomplished and meticulous actresses of her generation, her repertoire ranging from Shakespeare to character parts in Harry Potter.
She was a performer of contrasts, with an astonishing capacity to switch imperceptibly from radiance to melancholy, from quiet to boisterous, from graciousness to mischief within seconds.
Although she was a tour de force in leading roles on the West End stage, she was equally happy – even during the years of her mega-stardom – to accept supporting roles, particularly in films.
Truly professional and as near a perfectionist as she could be, she treated these roles with as much detailed and careful attention as she did her major parts.
Probably her greatest triumph was in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, for which she won her first Oscar.
But, Dame Maggie – she was made a DBE in 1990 – was self-deprecating about her abilities.
Her family background gave no indication that she would not only enter the acting profession but also become one of its leading exponents.
She said she had wanted, from childhood, to become an actress, but she did not see a play or a film until she was a teenager.
Maggie Smith and Whoopi Goldberg pictured during their performance in Sister Act
The legendary British actress in Tea With Mussolini, which was released in 1999
Smith stars alongside helena Bonham Carter in A Room With A View
A look at Monty Python star Michael Palin alongside his fictional wife Maggie Smith in A Private Function
Ralph Fiennes presents Dame Maggie Smith with a Bafra award for Best Supporting Actress for the film ‘Tea With Mussolini’ at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on April 9, 2000
Nor did she receive much encouragement from her family, particularly one of her grandmothers, who remarked that she could not go into acting ‘with a face like that’. But none of this deterred her from her ambition.
Margaret Natalie Smith was educated at Oxford High School for Girls and later the Oxford Playhouse School, and first appeared on the stage as a girl of 18 in Twelfth Night.
She made an early mark in revues, as a singer and dancer. One fan who saw her on Broadway in New Faces of ’56, said he laughed so much he ended up banging his head on the seat in front of him.
She was spotted by Laurence Olivier, who saw her as much more than just a vaudeville performer and invited her to join the newly-formed Royal National Theatre Company in London.
There, and at the Old Vic, she excelled in both tragedy and comedy, moving easily from Shakespeare to Noel Coward, to Restoration comedy to Ibsen.
As a ‘rep’ actress, she was able to develop her incredible range, skill and talent among some of Britain’s best actors, including Robert Stephens, who was to become her first husband. They married in 1967 but divorced in 1974.
The film industry began to recognise her abilities and she was given several supporting roles.
Other film roles include her portrayal of a drunken Oscar loser in California Suite, the dying older lover in Love, Pain And The Whole Damn Thing, the tragic lodger in The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne, and the so-called ‘funny old bat’ in Gosford Park, which brought her a sixth Oscar nomination.
Even in smaller roles she could upstage the film ‘giants’. In one film, Richard Burton described her scene-stealing as ‘grand larceny’.
Smith appears alongside Diana Rigg in Evil Under the Sun which came out in 1982
The British actress also appeared in From Time to Time alongside Timothy Spall and Pauline Collins, pictured
Smith in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ performed at the Aldwych Theatre, London, UK 1993
Another look at the late British actress as she starred in A Room with a View
Another still photograph showing Smith’s role in Tea With Mussolini
Queen Elizabeth II being presented to Dame Maggie Smith by Sir Laurence Olivier, when the Queen attended the charity premiere of the film Othello at the Odeon Theatre in London, on May 2, 1966
In 2010 she was central to the success of ITV series Downton Abbey, in her Emmy-award winning role as the acerbic Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham.
But she later told ES Magazine: ‘I am deeply grateful for the work in (Harry) Potter and indeed Downton (Abbey) but it wasn’t what you’d call satisfying.
‘I didn’t really feel I was acting in those things.’
Her numerous awards also covered her performances in Tea With Mussolini, A Room With A View, A Private Function and The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne.
She starred alongside Dame Judi Dench in the 2004 film Ladies In Lavender, and on stage in the David Hare play The Breath Of Life.
She recently starred in the 2022’s Downton Abbey: A New Era, where Violet’s health deteriorates and she dies in an emotional end to her character.
The next year, she appeared in The Miracle Club, which follows a group of women from Dublin who go on a pilgrimage to the French town of Lourdes.
Dame Maggie’s second husband, the playwright Beverley Cross who she married in 1975, died in 1998.
She had two sons from her first marriage, Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, who are both actors.
