‘Harry Potter’ Star Maggie Smith Passes Away at 89
By Pavethran Batmanathen
Dame Maggie Smith, one of Britain’s most celebrated actresses, whose illustrious career spanned from performing alongside Laurence Olivier in “Othello” to iconic roles in “Harry Potter” and “Downton Abbey,” has passed away at the age of 89.
Her sons shared the news in a statement released by their publicist, Clair Dobbs.“It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in the hospital early this morning, Friday, September 27.
A fiercely private individual, she was surrounded by friends and family at her side,” the statement read. “She is survived by her two sons and five beloved grandchildren, who are heartbroken over the loss of their remarkable mother and grandmother.
We would like to express our gratitude to the outstanding staff at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their compassionate care during her final days.”Born in 1934 in Ilford, a middle-class suburb of East London, Smith moved to Oxford shortly before World War II began, where her father worked as a pathologist at the university.
After graduating from high school, she attended the Oxford Playhouse School from 1951 to 1953 and made her stage debut in an Oxford University Dramatic Society production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”Smith later graced Broadway in “New Faces of 1956” and starred in the London revue “Share My Lettuce” from 1957 to 1958.
She soon became a familiar face at The Old Vic theatre in London.In 1964, she played Desdemona alongside Olivier in “Othello,” reprising the role for the film adaptation the following year. Smith won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1969 for her role as an unconventional schoolteacher in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
”She received a second Academy Award, this time for Best Supporting Actress, in 1978 for her performance in Neil Simon’s “California Suite.” Additionally, she earned British Academy Film Awards for her performances in “A Room with a View” (1985) and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” (1987).In 1990, Smith was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, thereafter being known as Dame Maggie Smith.
However, many of her most memorable roles came later in her career, including a standout performance in the 1999 film “Tea with Mussolini,” directed by Franco Zeffirelli, which depicted a group of upper-middle-class English women living in Florence during the rise of fascism.
Smith gained immense popularity among younger audiences for her portrayal of the strict yet fair Professor Minerva McGonagall in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2001) and its sequels.Her portrayal of the acerbic Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, in “Downton Abbey” also garnered critical acclaim and won her three Emmy Awards.
She reprised this role in the 2019 feature-length film.In her later years, Smith became a symbol of aging gracefully, embodying her trademark charm and wit.When asked by “Women’s World” magazine in 2017 about her absence from award ceremonies, she humorously replied, “I truly think if I went to Los Angeles, I think I’d frighten people… They don’t see older people.”Smith was married twice: first to actor Robert Stephens, with whom she divorced in 1974, and later to playwright Beverley Cross from 1975 until his death in 1998.
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