Maggie Smith, the British actress who made an indelible impression on viewers in a multitude of roles including the sharp-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” has died. She was 89.
The actress died early Friday in hospital surrounded by friends and family, according to a statement released by her publicist.
With impeccable timing and sparkling wit, Smith racked up fans across the worlds of theater, television, and film. In her six-decade career, she won nearly every acting award in the U.K. and U.S., including two Oscars, five Baftas, four Emmys and a Tony. In 1990, she was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Actresses Kelly MacDonald (L) and Maggie Smith are shown in a scene from their Golden Globe nominated film, “Gosford Park.” The film received five Golden Globe Award nominations December 20, 2001 including Best Musical or Comedy Motion Picture and Best Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Musical or Comedy Motion Picture for Smith for her role in the film. REUTERS/Mark Tillie/USA Films-Handout
Smith made her debut in the “Downton” role in 2010. On the hit British period television show, which aired its final episodes in 2016 in the U.S., she routinely stole scenes with a raised eyebrow or pursed lips, and rapier asides sheathed in an upper-crust accent. Her character honed an air of faux-bemusement, her wide-eyed blithe remarks masking an encyclopedic knowledge of social minutiae as well as individuals’ pedigrees—and their net worths. “What is a weekend?” she asked over dinner in one episode. Smith reprised the role in the “Downton Abbey” film , which opened in the U.S. in September 2019.
In a 2013 interview, Smith told The Wall Street Journal, “I think as actors you’re intimidated most of the time by everything you have to do. It’s not straightforward. It’s all meant to look as natural as anything—you don’t know that we’re terrified.”
Born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex, England, in 1934, Smith moved as a child to Oxford. She studied acting at the Oxford Playhouse, and starred as Viola in a 1952 Oxford University Dramatics Society production of “Twelfth Night.” She made her Broadway debut just four years later, in the musical and comedy revue “New Faces of ’56.”
Travels With My Aunt (1972), Maggie Smith .Dir: George Cukor, MGM / The Kobal Collection
Smith broke through in the role of Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier in the 1965 film “Othello,” for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She won an Oscar for best actress for her portrayal of a passionate Scottish schoolteacher in the 1969 movie “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” and won for best supporting actress in 1978 for her role as a vain actress opposite Michael Caine in Herbert Ross’s sharp comedy “California Suite.”
Photo by Rex Features/APEIRON LAURENCE OLIVIER AND MAGGIE SMITH IN ” OTHELLO “
VARIOUS
In past years, Smith won acclaim as the stern but good-natured Professor McGonagall in the blockbuster Harry Potter films and was among the performers who provided voices for a videogame, “Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery,” released in 2018.
Actors Maggie Smith and Rupert Grint share a light moment on the red carpet as they arrive for the world premiere of “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” at Leicester Square in London, Britain July 7, 2009. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor/File Photo
Among Smith’s more-recent projects was “A Boy Called Christmas,” a 2021 family film based on the 2016 children’s book by Matt Haig. Directed by Gil Kenan, the movie also featured Kristen Wiig, Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent, in the story of an 11-year-old, Nikolas (who is nicknamed “Christmas”), who travels to the North Pole in search of his father.
Over the past decade, Smith starred as a retiree in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and its sequel. In 2015, she starred in “The Lady in the Van,” as a real-life woman who lived for 15 years in a van parked outside playwright Alan Bennett’s London home; Bennett wrote the screenplay.
Intensely private in her personal life, Smith rarely gave interviews. In “Maggie Smith: A Biography,” Michael Coveney wrote that she “chisels away at her work with the monastic dedication of the instinctive recluse.”
Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and had treatment even during “Harry Potter” filming. She once referred to her career with characteristic nonchalance: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, and one’s still acting.”
FILE PHOTO: Actress Dame Maggie Smith arrives at the Royal Film Performance and world premiere of the film, “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, at Leicester Square, London, Britain February 17, 2015. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo
Write to Gareth Vipers at gareth.vipers@wsj.com
