R.I.P. Maggie Smith, prolific star of Harry Potter, Downton Abbey, and countless more

Dame Maggie Smith, the legendary British actor known for roles in A Room With A View, Downton Abbey, the Harry Potter franchise and more, has died. Her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin confirmed the news to the BBC. She was 89 years old.

“It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” reads a statement from her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin. “We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days. We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time.”

Smith was a prolific star of stage and screen, beginning her career as a teenager at her hometown theater the Oxford Playhouse, per The Guardian. She made her Broadway debut in 1956 and was invited by Laurence Olivier to join the National Theatre Company in 1962. She was later nominated for her first Academy Award starring as Desdemona opposite Olivier’s Othello in the 1965 film. Smith would go on to win two Oscars, Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for California Suite (1978). She was nominated a total of six times, in addition to winning a Tony Award and several Emmy, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards. 

The decorated performer was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990 by Queen Elizabeth II (the 2018 documentary Tea With The Dames delightfully captures her kinship with fellow actor-dames Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, and Joan Plowright). She continued to work successfully between theater and film, starring in an impressive number of beloved classics such as A Room With A View (1985), Hook (1991), Sister Act (1992), The Secret Garden (1993), and The First Wives Club (1996). But for younger generations, she’s best known as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film franchise. “A lot of very small people used to say hello to me, and that was nice. It was a whole different lot of people,” Smith said of her career turn in the 21st century, joking on The Graham Norton Show, “One kid once said to me, ‘Were you really a cat?’ And I heard myself say, ‘Just pull yourself together!'”

Beyond Harry Potter, Smith continued to enjoy acclaim in her later years as part of the cast of Downton Abbey. The Masterpiece Classic series became a sensation and Smith, who played the formidable family matriarch Violet Crowley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, won three of her four Emmy Awards for her role. In this period she also starred in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies and took voice acting work in Gnomeo & Juliet and Sherlock Gnomes. Her final credits include The Miracle Club and the as yet unreleased film A German Life. She appeared in two Downton film spin-offs, after which she indicated to co-star Dominic West she would retire, he said in a press conference in 2022. “It was incredibly emotional. And I was talking to her afterwards in the make-up trailer, and it was very moving that this great, great actress wasn’t going to act any more,” West recalled (via The Independent). “And then I went back the following week, and I said: ‘It’s so sad Maggie.’ And she said: ‘Nonsense!’ She’s booked another film. She starts next week.”