Maggie Smith

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 1st of October 2024, theatres across the West End of London dimmed their lights for two minutes to honour Dame Maggie Smith. Broadway announced that its own theatres would follow with the same gesture. Few performers earn a tribute from stages on both sides of the Atlantic. Smith had worked for more than seven decades, moving between comedy and tragedy and between the stage and the screen. Her prizes came from theatre, film and television alike. This documentary asks how a quick-witted girl from Oxford became that kind of performer. It asks who pushed her, and what happened when they did. It asks why an actress famous for dry wit could be believed as a figure of tragedy. And it asks why her career found fresh international attention so far into its run.

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• 2. Oxford Beginnings

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  Margaret Natalie Smith was born on the 28th of December 1934 in Ilford, Essex, a place that now lies within Greater London. Her mother, Margaret Hutton, born Little, was a Scottish secretary from Glasgow. Her father, Nathaniel Smith, was a public-health pathologist from Newcastle upon Tyne. His work was at the University of Oxford, and the family moved there when their daughter was four. She had two older brothers, who were twins. She studied at Oxford High School until the age of 16. Then she left to train as an actor at the Oxford Playhouse.

  In 1952, at the age of 17, Smith began her career as Viola in Twelfth Night at the Oxford Playhouse. The production came through the Oxford University Dramatic Society. More Playhouse roles followed, including Cinderella in 1952, Rookery Nook and Cakes and Ale in 1953, and The Government Inspector in 1954. Television noticed her in 1954 as well, when she appeared in Oxford Accents, produced by Ned Sherrin.

  From June to December 1956, Smith played several parts in the revue New Faces of '56 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, which was her professional debut on Broadway. That same year she made her first film appearance, as an uncredited party guest in the British drama Child in the House. In 1957 she starred in the musical comedy Share My Lettuce, written by Bamber Gascoigne. Her co-star in it was Kenneth Williams, who would share a stage with her again in 1962.

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• 3. Rivalry With Olivier

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  The Evening Standard gave Smith the first of a record six Best Actress awards in 1962, for Peter Shaffer's plays The Private Ear and The Public Eye. That same year, Laurence Olivier watched her in The Double Dealer at The Old Vic. He invited her to join the National Theatre Company, which had just been formed at the Old Vic. Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon were fellow fixtures there during the 1960s, and Smith stayed with the company for eight years.

  The theatre critic Michael Coveney described what followed as a fierce rivalry. He wrote that Olivier "knew immediately he'd met his match". Olivier reasoned that anyone who could play comedy so well could also play tragedy, and he offered her parts such as Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello. According to Coveney, the two became "not enemies, but professional rivals". Nobody on stage had ever been quicker than Olivier, and now there was a contest.

  During a 1964 production of Othello, Olivier struck Smith across the face and knocked her out. She later recalled the incident on The Graham Norton Show in 2015 and in the 2018 documentary Nothing Like a Dame. She also appeared opposite him as Sylvia in The Recruiting Officer in 1963-64. In 1964-65 she played Hilde in Ibsen's The Master Builder with him.

  Smith's 1967 performance as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, is thought to be the earliest British television broadcast of the entire play. The screen version was assumed lost for decades. A copy was finally discovered in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, in 2010. Her Desdemona was filmed too, and the 1965 film of Othello brought her first Oscar nomination.

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• 4. Screen Roles

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  Vanessa Redgrave had created the role of Miss Jean Brodie on the London stage, and Zoe Caldwell won a Tony Award for playing her in New York. Yet it was Smith who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader called her work "technically stunning, emotionally distant". The role also brought her first BAFTA Film Award for Best Actress.

  George Cukor directed her as the eccentric Augusta Bertram in the 1972 film Travels with My Aunt. That performance earned her a third Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

  In the 1978 film California Suite, Smith played an Oscar loser opposite Michael Caine, and she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is the only person to have won an Oscar for portraying a fictional Oscar nominee. The role also gave her a first Golden Globe. The story goes that Caine later telephoned Michael Palin, who was about to make The Missionary (1982) with her. He warned Palin, with a straight face, that she would steal the film.

  Three pigs, all named Betty, shared the screen with Smith in the 1984 black comedy A Private Function, with Michael Palin. Producer Mark Shivas had been advised by Intellectual Animals UK to choose females aged six months, so the animals would not grow too large or aggressive. Even so, the pigs proved "unpredictable and often quite dangerous". During one kitchen scene a pig hemmed Smith in, and she had to vault over its back to escape. As Joyce Chilvers, she won her second Best Actress BAFTA.

  The 1984 Hungarian-American film Lily in Love, with Christopher Plummer, was a less happy experience. According to her biographer, Smith called it "the ghoulash" and admitted she did not understand the Hungarian director's instructions. She also nicknamed her co-star "Christopher Bummer".

  The Merchant Ivory film A Room with a View, released in 1985, earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Smith played Charlotte Bartlett in a cast that included Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Simon Callow and Denholm Elliott. Her work brought a fifth Academy Award nomination, a second Golden Globe and a third Best Actress BAFTA.

  Jack Clayton directed her in the 1987 film The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, which won her a fourth Best Actress BAFTA. Pauline Kael wrote that Smith makes you feel "the ghastliness of knowing you're a figure of fun".

  Steven Spielberg's 1991 fantasy Hook cast Smith as Granny Wendy, alongside Robin Williams as Peter Pan, Dustin Hoffman as Hook and Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell. The film made $300 million at the box office. In 1992 she played the Mother Superior in the Whoopi Goldberg comedy Sister Act, and she returned for the 1993 sequel Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.

  Robert Altman's 2001 murder mystery Gosford Park gave Smith the haughty part of Constance, Countess of Trentham. It earned her a sixth Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the same category in which Helen Mirren was nominated. The film premiered at the 2001 London Film Festival. Roger Ebert gave it four stars, his highest rating.

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• 5. Stage Triumphs

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  In 1970, Smith took the title role in Ingmar Bergman's London production of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. It won her a second Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress.

  In 1975 she played Amanda Prynne in Noël Coward's Private Lives at the 46th Street Theatre on Broadway, directed by John Gielgud. The New York Times critic praised her physical comedy, writing that her body "spins, lurches, misses yards at a time". He called the effect "hilarious, explosively so". The role brought her first Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination. In the mid-1970s she also made several guest appearances on The Carol Burnett Show.

  From 1976 to 1980, Smith won acclaim at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. She played Cleopatra in Anthony and Cleopatra in 1976, then Titania and Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Queen Elizabeth in Richard III in 1977. In 1978 she played Rosalind in As You Like It and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth.

  Tom Stoppard's original play Night and Day brought her back to Broadway in 1979 as Ruth Carson. The play follows a confrontation between a British diplomat and an African leader over a local uprising. The diplomat's wife watches everyone else's behaviour. Walter Kerr of The New York Times praised Smith but criticised the characters, writing that she "can't single-handedly turn night into day". It was her second Tony nomination for Best Actress in a Play.

  Peter Shaffer wrote Lettice and Lovage specifically for her. She starred in the 1987 London production with Margaret Tyzack, earning an Olivier Award nomination. When the play transferred to Broadway in 1990, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. Frank Rich of The New York Times wrote, "There is only one Maggie Smith, but audiences get at least three of her in Lettice and Lovage."

  In 1993 she played Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest at the Aldwych Theatre in the West End, a fourth Olivier nomination. The following year, 1994, she starred in Edward Albee's Three Tall Women. Paul Taylor of The Independent wrote that she "has to be seen to be believed". The role won her a record fifth Evening Standard award.

  Another Albee play, A Delicate Balance, followed in 1997, opposite Eileen Atkins. Smith played the witty, alcoholic Claire and received a fifth Olivier nomination. In 1999 she won praise as Miss Mary Shepherd in Alan Bennett's The Lady in the Van, with a sixth Olivier nomination. In 2007 she appeared in Albee's The Lady from Dubuque at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. David Benedict of Variety criticised the production but praised Smith.

  In April 2019, after an 11-year absence from the theatre, Smith returned in A German Life at the Bridge Theatre in London. Christopher Hampton's solo play, directed by Jonathan Kent, gave her the role of Brunhilde Pomsel, an elderly German woman who had worked as a secretary for Joseph Goebbels at the Ministry of Propaganda. Matt Wolf of The New York Times called it "a new high in a six-decade career with no shortage of peaks". It won her a record sixth Evening Standard Best Actress award. A film version was later announced, with Smith reprising the role.

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• 6. Hogwarts and Downton

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  From 2001 to 2011, Smith played Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series, appearing in seven of the eight films. Author J. K. Rowling had asked for both Smith and Robbie Coltrane, who played Hagrid. Smith was reunited with Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry Potter. The two had worked together in the BBC's David Copperfield, in which she played Betsey Trotwood.

  In 2016, while promoting The Lady in the Van, Smith recalled the fun of working alongside Alan Rickman. She said the two of them "used to laugh together because we ran out of reaction shots". When the children had finished, the camera turned on the adults, and they had to find expressions of amazement or sadness. They joked that they had reached "number 200-and-something". She returned to the character in 2018, voicing McGonagall in the role-playing game Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery.

  Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, gave Smith what the record calls newfound attention and international fame. She played her in the British period drama Downton Abbey from 2010 to 2015. The role won her three Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. She had already won an Emmy in 2003 for the HBO film My House in Umbria. In a March 2015 interview with Joe Utichi in The Sunday Times, she announced that the sixth season would be her last.

  The feature film Downton Abbey arrived in September 2019 and earned $194.3 million at the box office. Smith returned as Violet again in Simon Curtis's 2022 film Downton Abbey: A New Era. Her co-stars included Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern and Michelle Dockery.

  In 2012, Smith played Muriel Donnelly in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, with Judi Dench, Dev Patel, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Penelope Wilton. It surprised observers by becoming a box-office hit after its international release, and it led to a 2015 sequel. She was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. The same year she appeared in Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut, Quartet, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and earned her a tenth Golden Globe nomination.

  In 2021 she starred in the Netflix adaptation of Matt Haig's children's book A Boy Called Christmas. In 2023 she played Lily Fox in the Irish drama The Miracle Club, with Kathy Bates and Laura Linney. Its story follows a group of working-class women from Dublin on a pilgrimage to Lourdes in France. In October 2023 she was also revealed as one of the faces of the Loewe SS24 pre-collection.

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• 7. Honours and Causes

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  The 1970 New Year Honours made Smith a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Queen Elizabeth II made her a dame in 1990, when she was promoted to Dame Commander. In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours she became a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to drama. She was the third actress to receive it, after Sybil Thorndike in 1970 and Judi Dench in 2005.

  The University of St Andrews conferred an honorary Doctor of Letters on her in 1971. The University of Bath followed in 1986, and the University of Cambridge in 1994. In October 2017 she became an honorary fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford.

  The Hamburg Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded her the Shakespeare Prize in 1991. In 1994 she was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame, and in 1995 Women in Film and Television UK gave her a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1996 she received the BAFTA Fellowship, the highest honour that academy can bestow. On the 10th of April 1999 she received the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre in Washington, D.C. The Society of London Theatre gave her a Special Award at the 2010 Olivier Awards. In September 2012, Christopher Plummer presented her with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's Legacy Award at the Fairmont Royal York hotel. The Evening Standard Icon Award followed in 2013, and she entered the Actors Hall of Fame on the 9th of February 2014. In 2016 she received the Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts and the Bodley Medal from the Bodleian Libraries. Her star on the London Avenue of Stars disappeared in 2006, when all of the stars were removed.

  In September 2011, Smith backed an appeal to raise NZ$4.6 million to rebuild the Court Theatre in Christchurch, New Zealand, after the earthquake. In July 2012 she became a patron of the International Glaucoma Association, now Glaucoma UK. She was also a patron of the Oxford Playhouse, where she began her career. She served as a vice-president of the Chichester Cinema at New Park and of the Royal Theatrical Fund. On the 27th of November 2012 she donated a drawing of her own hand to the Celebrity Paw Auction for Cats Protection. In May 2013 she gave a gnome that she had decorated to an auction for the Royal Horticultural Society Campaign for School Gardening.

  In November 2020, Smith joined Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen on Zoom for a conversation called For One Knight Only, in aid of the charity Acting for Others. Branagh called the group "the greatest quartet of Shakespearean actors on the planet". In April 2021 she appeared in a streaming event with Kathleen Turner, raising money for The Royal Theatrical Fund.

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• 8. Private Life and Farewell

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  Smith married the actor Robert Stephens on the 29th of June 1967. They had two sons, the actors Chris Larkin, born in 1967, and Toby Stephens, born in 1969. They divorced on the 6th of April 1975. Smith married the playwright Beverley Cross on the 23rd of June 1975 at the Guildford Register Office, and they stayed married until his death on the 20th of March 1998. Asked in 2013 whether she was lonely, she replied that it seemed "a bit pointless, going on one's own, and not having someone to share it with". She had five grandchildren.

  In January 1988, Smith was diagnosed with Graves' disease, which led to radiotherapy and optical surgery. In 2007, The Sunday Telegraph disclosed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. By 2009 she was reported to have made a full recovery.

  In 2016 she told NPR that being a character actor, rather than a "dish", had let her age into mothers and grandmothers while still developing her talents. The interviewer pointed out that a reviewer had once called her "an undeniable dish" when she starred on Broadway in the 1960s.

  Smith died at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London on the 27th of September 2024, at the age of 89. King Charles III released a statement that began, "As the curtain comes down on a national treasure". He praised her warmth and wit, on stage and off. The prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, also called her a "national treasure".

  Daniel Radcliffe wrote, "the word legend is overused but if it applies to anyone in our industry then it applies to her." Emma Watson described her as "real, honest, funny and self-honouring". Helen Mirren, her Gosford Park co-star, compared her to Queen Elizabeth II and called her one of the greatest actresses of the past century. J. K. Rowling, Julian Fellowes, Viola Davis, Saoirse Ronan, Whoopi Goldberg and Hugh Bonneville were among many others who paid tribute. So was Paul McCartney, who had met her in the 1960s and occasionally dined with her. Julie Andrews called her a "dear friend", and Smith had attended Andrews's first wedding, to Tony Walton.

  Her funeral took place on the 4th of November at Mortlake Crematorium in Richmond, south west London. It was a private service. The performances she left on stage and screen remain open to anyone who wishes to watch.

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