Maggie Smith remembers her roles in Harry Potter and Downton Abbey.

Maggie Smith, who died on September 27, was a masterful, scene-stealing actress who won an Oscar in 1969 for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and won new fans in the 21st century as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey.” ” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film

“She leaves behind two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” Ms. Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement released by publicist Clair Dobbs.

Ms Smith was widely recognized as the outstanding British performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a string of Oscar nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies.

She remained in demand in her later years, although she lamented that “in the grandma era you can be lucky to get something.”

Ms Smith wryly summarized her later roles as “a gallery of grotesques”, including Professor McGonagall. When asked why she took the role, she quipped: “Harry Potter is my retirement.”

Richard Eyre, who directed Ms. Smith in a television production of “Suddenly Last Summer,” said she was “spiritually the smartest actress I've ever worked with.” You have to get up very, very early in the morning to To outwit Maggie Smith.”

“Jean Brodie,” in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh teacher, won her the 1969 Academy Award for Best Actress and also the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA).

Ms. Smith won a supporting actress Oscar in 1978 for “California Suite,” Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “Room with a View,” and BAFTAs for lead actress in “A Private Function” in 1984, “A Room with a View.” in 1986 and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1988.

She also received Oscar nominations for Supporting Actress in Othello, Traveling with My Aunt, Room with a View and Gosford Park, as well as a BAFTA Award for Supporting Actress in Tea with Mussolini. On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for Lettice and Love.

Her work in 2012 earned her three Golden Globe nominations for the globally successful television series Downton Abbey and the films The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Quartet.

Ms. Smith had a reputation for being difficult and sometimes overshadowing others.

Richard Burton noted that Ms. Smith not only took on a scene in “The VIPs” with him: “She commits a grand theft.” However, director Peter Hall noted that Ms. Smith was “not remotely difficult,” it was because she was among idiots. She’s very strict with herself, and I don’t think she sees any reason why she shouldn’t be strict with other people too.”

Ms. Smith acknowledged that she could be impatient at times.

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

Critic Frank Rich, in a review of “Lettice and Lovage” in The New York Times, praised Ms. Smith as “the stylized classicist who delivers a line as prosaic as 'Don't you have any jam?' can write in italics.” until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram from Coward or Wilde.”

Ms. Smith famously drew laughs over a prosaic line – “That haddock is disgusting” – in a 1964 revival of Noel Coward's “Hay Fever.”

“But unfortunately it was mentioned by the critics, and after that there was nothing to laugh about,” she remembers. “The moment you say something is funny, it’s wafer-thin. It’s really gone.”

Margaret Natalie Smith was born on December 28, 1934 in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London. She summed up her life briefly: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started acting, one is still acting.”

Her father was assigned to military service in Oxford in 1939, where her theater studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy education.

“I did so many things there at the universities, you know. … If you were smart enough, and I guess you were fast enough, you could do repeats almost every week because all the colleges were doing different productions at different times,” she said in a BBC interview.

She adopted Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was active in the theater.

Laurence Olivier recognized her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theater company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of “Othello.”

Ms Smith said two directors, Ingmar Bergman and William Gaskill, both of whom starred in National Theater productions, were important influences.

Alan Bennett, who was preparing to film the monologue “A Bed Under the Lenses”, said he was concerned about Ms Smith's reputation for boredom. As actor Jeremy Brett put it, “She starts divine and then goes down, more like a cheese.”

“The fact that we had just enough time to do it was really an absolute blessing because she was so fresh and so enthusiastic,” said Bennett, who also wrote a lead role for Ms. Smith in “The Lady in the Van.”

No matter how flamboyant she was on stage or in front of the camera, Ms. Smith was known for remaining very private.

Simon Callow, who starred with her in A Room with a View, said he ruined their first meeting with compliments.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply